Christmas

Yes, I love our family Christmases.

Sadly no longer it is not the same when your loved ones have died and you are alone. Lots of friends but it can never be the same. They have their own families and friends and even if they shared their time with me during Christmas it would never be magic again. Sad but life goes on. I keep busy bv volunteering and get through it by helping others. That is a different type of magic.

Apart from my children I no longer have any blood relatives living in the UK but I have been totally adopted into my husband's family and nearly always stay with my SIL, enjoying the company of her children and grandchildren. BIL and his family usually arrive on Boxing Day (which is my birthday) so I have family to celebrate both Christmas and my birthday. Our daughter will always come with us for part of the holiday depending on her hospital shifts. There are four dogs, so a bit hectic and a requirement to keep the kitchen door closed but we walk on the beach, catch up on family news, eat far too much and play games in the evening. We rarely have the TV on but I like to read by the log fire with a dog on my lap. It is all very relaxed. Christmas is the excuse to get together as a family as we all live in different parts of the country.

While I love Christmas day, I get a bit stressed about gift giving. While some people are natural gift givers, always knowing what to get people, I really struggle with it. That and making sure it is all equal in dollar amount. I find it exhausting.

We have a postal strike in Canada this year, so no cards are being sent, and no parcels. The couriers are just too expensive compared to the postal service. So for my DD and family, I am ordering items, and having them delivered to her house, but then she has to wrap them. I've promised her some wrapping paper and a bottle of wine when I next visit!

But the lights, the tree, wreaths, carols... I love all that!

I do love seeing Christmas Lights in the town and houses where people are able to decorate inside or out.
I live alone now, and am not able to put up decorations. My few remaining relatives are busy with their own lives/children and grandchildren (I have no children of my own). I will visit my younger sister and exchange presents before Christmas and a younger cousin just after. Sometimes, I resent being the one who has to travel, despite being the eldest and in poor health - but I enjoy the visit when I get there!
I’ll attend as many services as I can at Church, provided that my Powerchair can get me through any bad weather.
I’ll be eating Christmas Dinner alone, but will have a good day just the same. I wish everyone an enjoyable Christmas Season and a very Happy New Year!

We are having Christmas Day on our own this year. First time ever. A combination of ACs working over Christmas and distance. So we are having whatever we feel like for lunch. Doing whatever we want. A walk if it’s nice, a film or book if it isn’t. A lovely relaxing day. Off to DDs for turkey etc on Boxing Day. Perfect

Oooh the little weep. I can sympathise with that. Just had a little weep over some silver cutlery of my DM. I akways had to clean it before Christmas with Duraglit..horrid smelly stuff. And I am still cleaning it with John Lewis stuff 30 years after she died. I have decided to use the soup spoons every day not just at Christmas and had a little weep today when I got them out of the drawer. I am going to put the stainless steel cutlery away and only use the silver from now on.
My DM loved it and so do I as it is quite a plain design. And the JL cleaner is quick to use.
I wish Mum and Dad were spending Cnristmas with us one last time. Oh dear here come the tears again.

It’s never been my favourite time of year but DH absolutely loved it. Nothing was ever too much, from the decorations to the presents and the Christmas food and drink. It was just a case of wind him up and let him go!😊 Now I can hardly be bothered, but have just finished putting up and dressing the tree. It brings him a little bit closer for all of us.

Finally got round to making a start of the dreaded Christmas cards today doing the overseas ones first, which is probably too late anyway. OH trotted off to the Post Office to get them weighed only to be told "Canadian Post Office are on strike and not accepting anymore cards" oh well it's an email then! We'll hang on to these for next year, hopefully the strike may have finished by then

I do sympathise with the above two posts, Christmas is over hyped and for those, for whatever reason, having a miserable time, well Christmas with its forced bonhomie and rampant consumerism just highlights all of that.

If you love Christmas - great. Personally I think it’s over-hyped and a pain. TV adverts of happy families sitting round tables of wonderful looking food. Not true for so so many people.
Perhaps having a birthday so close to Christmas doesn’t help!

I am dreading Xmas this year as I have separated from my husband, and have a chronic illness which has me bedbound so it will very much be another day. I feel sad as I had enjoyed a better phase of health last year and really was able to enjoy being with my daughter and grandchildren. This year that won’t be possible. I have managed to decorate my bedroom though and have a small tree up. I think I will be glad when it’s over to be honest and that’s sad. So to all the fellow people on your own, we have each other. To everyone else have a wonderful Xmas and enjoy it.

We've 4 separate Advent Christmas lunches for our daughters and their families -- one meal for all would be too many people (we've near 60 people including my brother and his small family).

Two Christmas-Advent meals over and two left to prepare.

All is proceeding nicely. Santa's grotto is gorgeous, for those GC and GGC who like to play out with their parents in our garden, shed and shop.

One mini holiday complete and one soon - we love winter Holidays.

Glad that so many are happy about Christmas. I’m with Missinterpreted and Harmonypuss. I do it for the GC but am ready for my AC to invite me to theirs instead. Not wanting to disappoint but haven’t the energy. I’ve hinted about me visiting them for a change but they want to come here. Maybe the ‘compulsory’ partaking will gradually evolve so it becomes more socially acceptable for people to do their own thing or ignore Christmas altogether if they so wish. Then it would be a bit easier for those who find Christmas a stressful time.

PS: and a Gardener please !

I love Christmas, always have. If people want to start in November that’s up to them, I don’t have to buy (literally) into that. Advent begins on the first Sunday (late Nov or early Dec) and we celebrate that. But I have noticed that the older I get the more emotional I get about Christmases past - had a weep over the tea towels my mother bought us that are only used at Christmas. We have no small children anymore but there’s still excitement. I know I’m way more fortunate than some as DH is still with me and we have family nearby. My heart goes out to those who have lost their dear ones.

I used to love Christmas when I did everything - the presents, the cooking, the decorations, etc etc. I still love the season, but find that now at 78 with various ills, I have no energy to do much of that any longer. My eldest son and family live in Japan and I’m currently finalising gifts and wrapping to post their gifts out there. My youngest ( 43 )lives near London and always used to come to me over Christmas and we had a jolly time, but last year and this I have persuaded him to go to spend the 3 days he spent here, to go to his girlfriend for Christmas. I also run a small part time business from home and quite honestly I’m exhausted and depressed at the thought of all I still have to do pre Xmas! But at least I won’t have to tidy up, put up decs, and can slob it out alone over Christmas, watching nice Christmas films, etc, eating what I want when I want, etc. it’s gone in a flash anyway! I have been on my own for decades and am perfectly happy that way. Tho a cook and house cleaner would be nice! Santa …if you’re listening?

Charleygirl5 - I’m on my own too. First year since my husband died in 2010 that I won’t be seeing anyone. Eldest son lives in London and his wife wants to host her family from America, fair enough. Youngest son lives in Switzerland and now has a partner who has young children and he wants to experience a family Christmas instead of sitting with me. My brother and sister are going to their children. I do feel abandoned but will try to make the best of a bad job.

alisonsmith4

Oh Romola - I so understand. I feel exactly the same.

Me too! My late husband and I adored Christmas with the family. Now he has died, it’s just not the same, even though my family pull out all the stops and really try to give me a good Christmas. I put on a brave face and I think I get away with it but I am so glad to get to Boxing Day where I can be on my own and just think about past Christmasses (not in a morbid way, a thankful happy way) and how lucky we were to have so many Christmasses together with the family. We always refused any invitations for Boxing Day. It was ‘our’ day where we sat and enjoyed the day together watching rubbish TV and eating the second Christmas dinner that our daughter will have packed for us after the real one. That day was so precious to us and so full of love and gratitude for what we had.
The trouble is, the more you love something or someone, the more it hurts when it’s no longer there.
I hope everyone in my position manages to enjoy the day in as good a way as possible. After all, when all’s said and done, it’s just another day!

I have always loved Christmas and still do, although having very little family left to actually be with at Christmas is hard.

Last year, I did very little as DH died in November. This year I have young friends coming to stay, and am waiting to hear from the Red Cross if they have one or two lonely people who would like to join us for Christmas dinner.

This week, and last, I am volunteering at the local museum, where we invite local kindergardens to bring a group of children each week-day to make Christmas decorations, sing carols and receive a visit from Santa Claus. It is refreshing and heartening to see three and four year olds' gleeful anticipation of Christmas.

As a grown-up, I do agree that the shift from observing Advent and celebrating Christmas at Christmas to decorations going up and office parties starting in the last weekend of November is annoying, but the little ones are fortunately still untouched by this adult nonsense.

Yesterday, Mass ended with a (delayed) visit from St. Nicolas and the little ones in the congregation were in no doubt at all that it really was the saint who had coming bringing sweeties for all the good children (and suprise, suprise, there were not any naughty children in church!)

It's easily one of my favorite seasons of the year! I love everything from decorations to cheesy smartshow 3d videos to gift giving.

I used to love Christmas as a young child, we celebrated with my maternal gran, aunts and cousins, but following my father’s death when I was 6 and a half, it never felt the same. We followed the same family traditions, but without him, it seemed less of a celebration. I began to enjoy it many years later following the birth of my eldest son and now with my two GDs it seems a happier time. My poor DM never quite got over my dads death.

Too much build up these days and over commercialised. It has lost the true meaning.

I used to love Christmas - everyone had a small stocking at the end of the bed (just fruit and sweets) and we all got on the patents'bed, including Grandma who lived with us). Coming down to the magic of the tree, with the presents underneath, and decorations wbich had magically appeared after the young ones had gone to bed on Christmas Eve.
My husband loved Christmas and thinking of ways to keep it magical each year. Since losing him I don't feel like celebrating. Do have Christmas dinner with my very small family of daughter and granddaughter, then back home with my lovely dog for company. I could stay with the family longer, but they keep the T.V.on very loud, even when no-one is watching or listening!!

We love Christmas! I "did" Christmas for forty-four years and the first one on our own felt a bit strange but we are used to it now. Christmas Eve and the Day will have a lot of church services and we'll make ourselves a nice dinner with some of the trimmings. Two Christmas puddings already made, also mince pies and rum butter. Big family get-togethers on 28th and 29th, for which I have to make one vegan/vegetarian dish, which I don't mind as I'm a veggie myself. And take one of the puddings to the occasion on 30th. Book club dinner this week for which I am making another dish. But all this is nothing compared to past years of three days' worth of meals for up to a dozen people. We enjoy carols, cards, putting up the tree and decorations (did that yesterday), wrapping presents and good Christmas TV. Though I'll be watching the Call the Midwife and Gavin and Stacey specials on my own a bit later. Of course if I were truly on my own it would be different. Hope it will be the two of us for a few years yet.

Maggiemaybe

You need to start a new thread, Parky, just because people who can help and advise (and there is always good support on here) probably won’t see your post hidden away on this one.

If you click on Menu above and choose a forum from the list - Health might be most appropriate? - you’ll then see the option to Add Discussion.

I’ve no experience so no advice to offer, I’m afraid, but all best wishes to you.

That was kind and very helpful Maggiemaybe. Wishing you the very best Parky.