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Christmas, because it is rather a sentimental time you tend to look for the familiar and go back into what you remember in your childhood.' In the process of preparing family favourites or trying exciting new foods at Christmas, older New Zealand women construct self and family identities. This paper presents the New Zealand findings from an interpretive, multi-site research project exploring older women's experiences of food occupations at Christmas in Auckland, New Zealand, and Kentucky, USA and Songkran (the tradition Thai New Year) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Narrative data were collected through focus group interviews with 16 New Zealand women, aged 65 years or over. Talk about recipes and kitchen things used, and how the foods are prepared and served revealed layers of identity work. While recipes from, and stories about, mothers' and grandmothers' homemade cooking are kept alive through doing the food work at Christmas, being a women in contemporary New Zealand allowed new identities to emerge. Identity as a family unit is formed and reformed over time by blending cultural and family traditions and remaking new ones through Christmas foods and family rituals. Significantly, the women's skilled preparation and customising of recipes for Christmas foods creates a rich opportunity for self-affirmation and public recognition. For these older women, the gift of Christmas food was like giving something of themselves.Older New Zealand women doing the work of Christmas Older New Zealand women doing the work of Christmas

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It is deep within our hearts that we have to do this." Such words reflect the potency of subjective and social meaning of food occupations for older Thai women at Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year. This paper presents the Thai findings from a multi-site research project exploring older women's experiences of food occupations at Songkran in Chiang Mai, Thailand; and Christmas in Auckland, New Zealand, and Kentucky, USA. Narrative data for this study were collected through focus group interviews with 33 Thai women aged 60 years or over as the women talked about planning, preparing, and offering food at Songkran. The women's stories reveal the centrality of carrying on ritualistic food traditions in Chiang Mai society. They must know and follow the ancient ways and recipes taught by mothers and grandmothers as they prepare themselves and the foods for going to the temple where they offer food to the monks and their deceased ancestors. Happiness comes from earning merit, doing the jobs themselves and knowing they contribute to a good and generous Thai society. Their ways are the traditional ways. Doing and passing on food occupations to their daughters and granddaughters will "serve the good traditions forever." The findings from this study contribute to the occupational science literature through documenting food occupations and their meanings for older women within one cultural group. The multi-site nature of the project contributes to understandings of occupation that transcend cultural boundaries.

Introduction: Caring for people with dementia can be stressful and demanding. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to investigate the problems and needs of caregivers who help older people with dementia to do activities of daily living. Method: Thirty caregivers who took older people with dementia to get treatment at a memory clinic in a hospital in the north of Thailand were interviewed using a semistructured interview. Transcribed data were analysed using inductive analysis. Findings: The analysis generated five themes related to problems experienced by caregivers: toileting is the hardest job, lifting causes back pain, loss of memory problems, economic hardships and psychological distress. These issues aggregated into support needs from three sources: information and rehabilitation services from health professionals, assistance with everyday tasks from family members and financial support from society. Conclusion: The findings reveal that the kind of support Thai caregivers seek from various groups differs according to their perceived expertise and availability. Further studies are needed to explore how that assistance might be delivered and whether it is in fact helpful.