How will you handle the holidays?

[heartsore]

As we approach the holidays, I'm wondering what some of you do to help make it easier to deal with.

The holidays are something to get past now . . . I don't look forward to them anymore.

It might be helpful if we share with each other the ways we have found that help ease the pain.

Ian died on December 7th, 2002 and so we didn't observe Christmas at all that year. The next year, I borrowed some books from the Compassionate Friends about dealing with the holidays. One of the things they suggested is decorating a tree dedicated to your child.

Since Ian was a pilot, I obsessively bought every airplane, butterfly, angel and star ornaments. I didn't really look forward to decorating for the holidays, but I felt it wasn't fair to my other children to not to put up a tree. There was no way I could bring myself to take out our Christmas decorations because there were too many memories packed in those boxes.

I doubt I'll ever hang our stockings again. I just hate this, but somehow I have managed to cope - maybe just by breathing and putting one foot in front of the other.

I look at the chair in which Ian always sat and remember his beautiful smile and the sound of his laughter. Oh, life was good then . . . .

[Corinne]

Holidays are hard. The 1st year I only put up a tree, the week before Xmas. Now, I do a bit more, but our Christmas has become personal. We have dinner alone not with a lot of extended family. Thanksgiving has become the same. I get together with my siblings, nieces and nephews on Christmas Eve.

Corinne

[yukonjake]

Tim died on December 22, so Christmas will be bittersweet for the rest of my life.

My other son, Dennis, is 14. I keep telling myself that he deserves Christmas to be a time of joy rather than a time of grief. And it's not just him. If he learns Christmas as a sad, tormented time, that will poison his wife and kids one day and that is just not fair to this nice woman and these beautiful kids that I haven't met yet.

Last year (and every year to come) when I awoke on the 22nd (and I am always the first one up), I unplugged all of the interior and exterior decorations. I may be committed to normalizing Christmas for Dennis's sake, but I will not endure force false gaiety on that particular day.

So, we observe all of the same traditions as ever, just with one eye toward heaven. We do the tree, we do the decorations, we do the baking (you may not know this, ladies, but I am a d*mn good cook), we make every Advent church service and go to the Christmas Eve mass. In addition, though, the 22nd is a day we take off from the week-long Bacchanalia that is the Jackes family Christmas.

Thanksgiving is a different case. The whole family agreed, a month before Tim died, that Thanksgiving 2003, was the best ever. The food was perfect, the wine (for the adults) was superb, and my toxic sister was almost pleasant.

But, my sister is toxic (thank you Joan, for coming up with the perfect phrase to describe her). Tim and I had planned to finish our Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, including a gift my my sister. Instead, my bride and I spent that day shopping for a box for Tim's ashes. We never got around to getting anything for my toxic sister. Four months later, she wrote us a letter (she lives three miles away, and she communicates by hate mail, rather than hate phone or (thank God) hate inperson), saying that she knew that we had had a rough couple of months but sweetly reminding us that she hadn't received her Christmas present yet (in May, for crying out loud!! Right around Tim's birthday too.) She has not been welcome in my bride's house since. She has visited a time or two (likes to hopefully drop in at mealtime), but she hasn't been welcome.

Anyway, because Thanksgiving 2003 was the best ever and I don't want to ever top it, and because my sister has no place else to go (no one else will have her), we, for last year and this year, have looked for different ways to show our thankfulness, which (God forgive me) do not include my sister. Last year, we went to a nice restaurant. This year we are inviting another family, who does not know my sister, so we have a reason to exclude her.

[ericsmom]

I too have a toxic sister(thanks to you, Joan). She has had no contact with our family in over 5 years, including Eric's death. She sent us a "generic" sympathy card, along with a note including the statement "sorry to hear about the death of Eric"....like he was some stranger who's obituary she had read. She's a mean, spiteful, selfish, self-centered, "being" (I can't use person, because that word has a meaning of "feelings"). Now, those are the good things I can tell you about her.

So, our holidays had somewhat changed even before Eric died. Our family all used to come here for Thanksgiving, and it wasn't unusual for us to have 40 people for dinner. Last year, our first without Eric, no one came, it was just too hard for them...in fact none of my brothers, nor my parents have seen Eric's grave since the day we buried him, and my parents have not been here since that day...again it comes back to each person grieving in their own way, and if my mom doesn't come here, she doesn't have to "square in the face" deal with not having Eric in her life. So last Thanksgiving it was just Ron, Brian, CJ and me. We had talked about going out for dinner, but didn't know if we could handle "being sad" in public, so we stayed home...and it was different, but not a bad different. I don't know what we'll do this year, we haven't even talked about it yet....last year I literally bought the turkey on Wednesday night.

Like Tim, Eric died right after Christmas on the 28th of the same year, 2003. It amazes me the "coincidences" on this board, that maybe are not coincidence, but part of God's greater plan that has brought us all here. I like Hugh, have always been a big Christmas nut, in fact I have plans tomorrow to start the outside decorations, it usually takes me two weekends. I thought last year about not having a tree, since Eric was the one who always brought the tree into the house, moaning and groaning about how big it was ....so last year was a smaller tree, again the same tradition, but different. My mother's birthday is also Christmas Day, so it is a double day for us. I don't do stockings anymore either, it's tough enough to sign 4 names to a Christmas cards, instead of 5, I know that I couldn't look at 4 stockings for over a month. We didn't try anything different, we were too busy trying to get through day by day. I also feel like Hugh, if I didn't have other children who struggle everyday without their brother, I don't know that I would celebrate anything. Our oldest, Brian, is really, really, struggling without Eric....his "away Message" over last weekend was.........."How do you begin to celebrate your dead brother's birthday?" That's a question with no answer.

I wish I had the magic answers for you. Again, it comes back to everyone does this the only way they can....for some of us that means changing, for others it means remaining the same.
I travel this path putting one foot in front of the other, and sometimes I can move forward, and for those days I am grateful, and I've learned to accept the days that I don't.

I will keep you in my prayers, that God helps you find your way on this path. Know that you are in good company on your travels.

Denise

[Corinne]

{{{{{{DINESE}}}}}}}} a hug for you and {{{{{{{{{Brian}}}}}}}}}} a hug for your son, your post brought tears to my eyes. Some forget how much this effects our living children

[Teeny's Mom]

I have a toxic mother! She causes me so much stress and anxiety. She had the nerve recently to try to say that my 86 year old grandmother's death was far worse than my 9 year old daughter! Grandma lived a long life and told me on more than one occassion that she didn't want to live to be 90. She had cancer and knew that her body was tired. She had done all she wanted to do. Ally was just getting started and died suddenly.
Anyway, unfortunately my mother lives 1 mile away from me. My sister lives in another state and has told my mother that the only way she can contact her is through an attorney. She wants nothing to do with mom. So my mother expects me to spend time with her. It stresses out my entire family. So... this year we are going to a concert on Thanksgiving (Ally passed away on the 22nd of November - so last year we went out to dinner the day before the funural - it was wierd - I had a turkey in the fridge and had planned on cooking) and for Christmas we are going to my inlaws house about 2 hours away. It will be hard without Ally. I still try to make it special for her sister, but we all feel the missing piece. I have not gotten the decorations down that we used to use. I don't know if I ever will. Ally used to spend weeks playing with the ornaments before we put them on the tree. Last year we bought new ones, just minimal. Ally had been planning a Christmas party and had already sent out invitations the week before she died. She had 3 pages of notes about how the party would be organized. She was a party girl. We find it really hard to have parties without her. I would love to just run away to somewhere where the holidays don't exsist. If I didn't have my DD, I probably would. The gifts that are the most important to us now cannot be bought, the whole thing seems silly now. Do I sound bitter? Sometimes I think I have become so anti-social.

[yukonjake]

My apologies, y'all. I did not mean to turn this thread into a gripe session about the toxicity of our relations.

[lindac]

Christmas is very difficult for me. Sean died on the 25th of July and the 25th is hard. The first year i just couldn't get into putting our tree up but needed to for our granddaughter that we are raising. There was just no way I could open those ornament boxes. Our tree is very eclectic and there are memories associated with just about every ornament. It finally dawned on me that that was the problem and i went to my dh and asked if we could buy plain ornaments and maybe some beaded garlands. We would have a tree but it would be completely different from any we had ever had. He agreed and off we went. I bought blue and silver glass balls (on sale no less) and found some pretty garlands. They just happened to have a pretty wire angel ornament and I bought that plus a gorgeous dragonfly and a couple other different ornaments. The tree turned out pretty and I placed the green marble box of Sean's ashes under the tree. I thought that was the perfect place as he always liked to lie under the tree and gaze at the lights. I did survive the day but not without escaping to the bedroom a couple of times to shed some private tears. The next year my best friend had a plan for how i would decorate the tree. He promised to help and we were going to have a separate box for ornaments I couldn't deal with. He thought it could be kept near and as I felt up to adding a special Sean ornament I could. In November of that year I was diagnosed with uterine cancer and was scheduled for surgery the beginning of December. I obsessed with having the tree up before I went for surgery and just wanted to be able to come home and recuperate on the couch with the tree lit and familiar, comforting ornaments on. My best friend came Thanksgiving weekend and we all worked on the tree together. Dh I bf assembled the tree and got lights on and I was able to get ornaments on with their help. Afraid I had to spend a lot of time sitting as was having such difficulty with pain and tiredness. It was wonderful coming home to my tree. I spent a lot of time on the couch with the tree lit, Christmas music on and napping away. That year I received a very special gift from my dear Secret Santa. I had seen a beautiful stained glass angel ornament and wanted it so bad but couldn't rationalize getting it because dh had lost his job. I was so surprised to receive one in a lovely green holding a heart with Sean on it. I sat on the couch and cried. My Christmas was hard without Sean but I did feel wrapped in love that year. The ladies here all helped me through a very scary and difficult time. I wasn't allowed to go to church Christmas Eve because of the risk of being exposed to all the germs. My immunity was very down. I had never missed a Christmas Eve service in my life. Last Christmas I felt like I had something to celebrate, cancer surviver of one year. We had a quiet Christmas but a good day. I mainly reflected on what Christmas was all about.

There will never be a holiday that we won't still grieve, that we won't miss our children terribly but somehow we do manage to go on. It is what our children would expect of us.

Cindee, I do not like your mother at all!!!! How in the world can the loss of a 86 year old woman who lived her life be worse than losing a child 9 who had just begun to live hers? I am so sorry she is so very insensitive!

Hugh, from what I have heard of your sister and her calling about a present, I would like to rap her one with my cane!! (LindaC is going to be a crotchety old lady I fear ) How very rude! I do like the term "toxic". We all know people that that word certainly describes!

One good thing is the fact that we don't have to do this alone. If family members don't measure up, we have each other. I usually spend some time in chat on Christmas. People do show up at different times so if you need someone to talk to Christmas day go to the MSN chat room. You can look here to see who is online and then send a private message seeing if they want to join you there. I think we are all going to enjoy that feature.

((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))) as we appraoach our difficult times.

[missingjason]

HUGS TO EVERYONE AT SG. MAY OUR HOLIDAYS GO GENTLE. MAY GOD BLESS US WITH HIS GRACE AND KINDNESS AND GIVE US PEACE THROUGH THIS SEASON.

[pamela]

Hi Margot,

I think this is a good topic to discuss. The holidays have taken on such a different meaning for my family now. I certainly don't "celebrate" them like we used to but I have been very careful about keeping things as "normal" as possible for Bryan and Michelle.

I no longer have my own extended family to do anything with or for so I really just focus on my own children. Its going to be hard this year....I really can't believe that they are coming so fast. All I really want to do is get through them and make them for good as Michelle and Bryan as possible. I always buy something for Michael's grave and something for the tree that has his name on it.....

I know with each others support we will make it through and the days will continue....

Peace and hope to everyone....

Love pam

[judiann]

Hugh,

I think we could all use a good "gripe" session & what better time than the Holidays, when we're almost forced to deal with "toxic" relatives???

My oldest is a religious fanatic, refuses to celebrate "pagan" holidays & lives in Texas.....Thank God, I don't have to deal with her! My youngest has made no plans yet....so thats a "wait & see", but she's cool & wants to be with her family. Melvin never came back home after he left 18 yrs ago.....
Hopefully, Mom {my misery addict} won't do her usual nit-picking this year & Dad's ok.

I've been an "empty nester" for 15 yrs now, so we really don't mess too much with decorations & stuff anymore. Don't have the heart or any reason for it now either. I guess thats one advantage to being an "only", but I sure do wish there were a few grandbabies running around.

Don will probably go to his parents for Christmas......he has for the past 4 yrs. I don't go with him because #1....mom always has the "flu" then & I don't want to be too far away.
#2....MiL is verrry toxic....to me anyway, but I do miss his Dad & other brothers. Don't think I can handle this year with them.....it will be a day filled with memories of Scott {don's baby brother, died aug.1st, this yr}
#3....this will be my 2nd time since Melvin died & I'd prefer to be alone, like last year on Christmas Day. I can enjoy all my beautiful, precious memories that way & won't get hurt.

I think I'm already turning into that "crotchety old lady" LindaC was talking about!! Or maybe Greta Garbo with my "I Vant to be Alone" attitude!

Oh,Lord....Bless us All.....We sure need it.

Love,

judiann

[seansmommy]

Hi everyone,

Well I also have some toxic relatives (Pam and Linda might remember the junk that my parents put me through) but for the holidays we end up at our best friends house with their family. THis is a huge hispanic family and they have watched us grow up to be parents and we have watched the grandkids get married and have kids etc. Sean loved going over there so we have carried on this tradition because this is the family that has loved us unconditionally when mine hasn't and dh doesn't really want to associate too much with his. Christmas is easy for me since I am Jewish but of course Hanukkah is rough keeping it normal for the girls. Luckily we don't have near as much symbolyism and decorations so that I guess helps a little bit. I still have a Blockbuster gift card that was given to Sean that year and it probably isn't worth anything now. I just haven't been able to do anything with it. Somedays I miss being around my family for holidays then I remember how toxic they have been in the past well I forget really quickly. So here's to us getting through the holidays for our remaining kids and for ourselves. Lots of hugs to everyone.

Shelley

[Corinne]

It still amazes me how many of us have toxic people in our families. Mine of course are all of my in-laws. However, our life without their presence has actually been a relief. No more fronts, we can be ourselves. We do not have to measure up to them anymore. I am ok with that. DH is ok with that too. People choose to be what or who they are. They make their choices. If they feel they need to be cruel and insensitive, so be it, but I do not need to be near them. I have my family.

Corinne

[ginamc]

:'(The last Thanksgiving with Kari was at my soon-to-be inlaws house and was rather awkward. I felt weird eating someone else's dinner when I usually made my own for my own family. After losing Mike in 2002, we didn't have Thanksgiving and then in '03 we went to the inlaws to be supportive of my daughter and her fiance. Last year was when Kar died so we didn't do anything-just another day. Now the inlaws have invited us again (sort of-they told my daughter but didn't call me!). I'm against it as the memories of Kari's last T-day would be too much, I believe. I don't want to cry in front of these people. (they never even sent me a card after Kar died) I may go to my brother's if he asks. He's a great guy and understands my feelings as much as he can! Haven't heard from him yet, though. If not, I will stay home and eat pumpkin pie in Kari's memory.
I will have a tree and will put some old ornaments on and some new I got on e-bay. I've always gotten the tree and put it up-can't resist the pine smell. Even if nobody else sees it, it's important to me. Last year my oldest helped me-maybe she will again. Hope so! Doesn't matter if there are tears...Sure wish we could go back to earlier years...Love to you all, Gina

[judiann]

(((((((((Gina))))))))

I forgot about Thanksgiving.....

Love to You,

judiann