[Music Playing]Mary Alexandria: Hi, I am Mary Alexander from Home Instead Senior Care. And today I am going to share with you some tips for senior caregiving during the festive and busy holiday season. But first, let's talk about holidays in general. Holidays are supposed to be times of joy, celebration and rest. But in reality, the holidays can feel like a roller coaster with emotions running high as your gas tank is on low.

There are just two many things to do. There are presents to shop for, decorations to hang, holiday treats to bake and family gatherings to organize, and then we need to think of our senior loved ones and how to provide the best care for them over the holiday season.

With everything we have to do over the holidays, we can feel stressed out. But according to experts, the main reason for holiday stress is having unrealistic expectations. From the time we are children, we build up expectations of what the holiday should be. In the media, we see perfect images of family, friends, food, parties and gifts. What we fail to see is that these are staged scenes. We may all aspire to be Mark Stuart but the reality will probably be less than perfection. What we have to realize over the holidays is that there is nothing wrong with falling short of perfection. So, I would like to share with you a few things we can do to manage expectations and make the holidays fun, all while minimizing stress for caregivers and their families. In this video series, we will discuss holiday travel and shopping, gift giving and family gatherings. In addition, we will talk about specific things you can do to help your senior loved ones to beat the holiday blues.

Home Instead Senior Care, a national leader in providing home care services for seniors is bringing you this video series to help family caregivers during the holidays. Helping seniors is something Home Instead has been doing passionately now for more than 15 years. I not only work for Home Instead but I am a certified senior advisor. More importantly, I am currently a long distance caregiver for my dad and I spent several months caring for my mom locally. Let's start talking about some of the best ways for caregivers to prepare for the holidays.