Perhaps pots of aromatic herbs, so they can take a piece and crush it to disguise the instutitional smells those places have. I know caring for them will be extra trouble, but it might be worth it.

Does the nursing home have adequate landscaping? Might your group each contribute a plant or plants, each tagged with the name of a resident, to make up flower beds? It might mean dedicating regular care.

Get wall calendars, the kind where there is a single picture and you rip off the month pages. Since it's late in the year, you might try to find eighteen-month calendars. Take a photograph of one of your gardens and print it off on your computer. Trim it slightly smaller than the calendar picture and laminate it to the calendar. You could do 94 different pictures of the different gardens, so each resident would have a special calendar. Write messages on particular days.

Buy flower stamps from the post office. Get boxes of inexpensive all-purpose cards and envelopes with floral designs that can be used for birthday, get well soon, etc. The cards and stamps will let them remember friends and family through the year.

Ray

Several years ago, my homemakers group made placemats for the nursing home using old Christmas cards. You can collect birthday and other occasions too. The base of the mat was contact paper and the cards were cut using a mason jar lid as a pattern. The mats were oval with a scallopy edge. You can overlap the round pictures to fill in spaces. We attached the card pictures onto the sticky side which you have facing up and when it is full, then you use clear contact paper over the top of the cards and cut in to the shape. Like lamenating it. They turned out really nice. I'm thinking of having my youth group make these for next Christmas to take to the local nursing home.

Just thought of another idea, since you are a garden club, maybe use seed packets or pictures of flowers from old calendars or pictures from a plant catalog depending on the paper used. Heavier, glossy pictures would work well.

Hi, there are some great suggestions here. I think that a lot depends on the residents of the nursing home. I worked on a floor in a nursing home with early Alzheimer's patients; I don't think that they would have appreciated a calendar. They did love a sign with their name of their doors. This could be done with paper or cardboard. This could be done with the seed packets or pictures of flowers as mentioned above.

I liked the herbs idea-what about saches or small baskets with colorful dried flowers and herbs, or homade candles with the dried flowers in them-candles may not be allowed though. - Abbey

Last year I worked with some teenage girls to make a gift for residents of a nursing home and we took see-through fabric and made a potpourri from dried herbs, roses etc. They were small and could go into their drawer on their nightstand. The name idea with seed packets/pictures of flowers etc. for their door sounds good too. If any of your group can play an instrument etc., they love to have groups come in and sing a few songs in their lounge area. A girlscout group might like to do that with you. I did have some of the girls paint small birdhouses I had picked up really cheap at Walmart and we glued a ribbon on the end and tied them on their door knob.

Small ornaments to decorate doors and doorknobs are usually well received. Especially something that says Christmas like jingle bells- maybe even a jingle bell wreath. It is always nice to add some holiday color and a little jingle. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Christmas Crafts