Christmas cards, gifts, tactile decorations and more – our top tips for a fantastic festive period
Regardless of your level of sight, Christmas is a wonderful and magical time for millions of people all across the globe. As the holiday season approaches, we have decided to explore how technology and some brilliant inventions make the things we do around Christmas just a little easier for blind and visually impaired people. From gift-giving to reading and writing Christmas cards, here are our top tips!
Tactile decorations
Tactility is key for blind and visually impaired people, adding a new level of communication that encourages the imagination to soar. Tactility can be introduced in a whole range of traditional Christmas activities, from tactile advent calendars to tactile gift tags and tactile decorations!
Below are some of our favourite tactile Christmas decoration ideas from Victa Parents, all of these are homemade, and you can find the details of how to do it yourself on their page here.
A little help with writing your Christmas Cards
Another favourite pastime for many during this festive period is to write and send Christmas cards, sending wishes of joy and goodwill to their friends and family. If you are losing your sight, then writing Christmas cards can seem a little daunting, particularly if you have many to do.
Thankfully, there are a couple of fantastic inventions out there that make light work of Christmas card writing and any other form of writing you may need to do. The Compact 10 HD is a portable electronic magnifier with a camera that folds out on an arm, which is perfect for magnifying the writing of a card or a letter.
(COMPACT 10 VIDEO WITH READING ARM)
If portability isn’t a requirement, then a desktop CCTV unit is the best option for magnifying anything you may need to write or annotate.
The ClearView C provides a high definition screen, ranging from 21-24 inches, with a camera fitted beneath it. Anything you place on the area beneath the camera will be instantly magnified on the screen. You can change the level of magnification, freeze the image in place, change the colours and more – simply find the option that is best for your sight.
A man using a Clearview C 24 HD to view a stamp with a high level of magnification.
Include braille on your gifts and cards
Unless you have access to a braille embosser, it can be challenging to print off custom braille messages. A good way around this is by buying a sheet of braille alphabet stickers and using these to spell out the name or message you want to put in your Christmas card or on the label of a present.
If any of your friends and family are blind and a braille reader, then this simple addition to a gift label or Christmas card can make a huge difference.