Former President George H.W. Bush spent Christmas in a Houston hospital with his wife, Barbara, and other relatives who planned to treat him to a special holiday meal.

Bush’s son, Neil, and his wife also visited, said Jim McGrath, Bush’s spokesman in Houston.

The 88-year-old has been in the hospital since November 23 with a lingering, bronchitis-like cough.

A hospital spokesman had said Bush was likely to be released to spend Christmas at home, but then McGrath said the former President developed a fever.

Doctors remain “cautiously optimistic” Bush will recover, but want to keep him in the hospital while they help him build up his strength and balance his medications, McGrath said.

Bush has been receiving visitors for weeks, including two by his son, former President George W. Bush, and one by Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.

Bush and his wife reside in Houston during the winter and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The former President was a naval aviator in World War II – at one point the youngest in the navy – and was shot down over the Pacific.

He achieved fame in retirement for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.

Across the Atlantic, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also spent Christmas in hospital recovering from surgery to remove a growth on her bladder.