The Bah! Humbug! Christmas thread.

It must be said! Christmas is not friendly to the environment!:

Then (for me) there's Christmas lunch with my mother & my niece .. at my mother's aged care facility. Sigh. I'm wondering how to stay cheerful if it takes longer than usual for my mother to actually know who I am this time. What if she can't remember at all?
Not asking for suggestions, mind. Just venting. Christmas makes me nervous.

Over to you.
Vent, whinge or complain as much as you like!
You are among friends here!

And Christmas cards!
Will people who send them to you hold it against you if you're too disorganized to reciprocate?
(Note to self: write messages on cards and send TOMORROW! If they arrive a wee bit late, is this better than sending no card at all?)

I'm enjoying the festive season!

I am looking forward to christmas day!!!


(Cowering....)

Excellent, excellent!

To tell the truth most of the lead-up stuff I find enjoyable (mostly), too.

It's mainly the family/Christmas associations I have difficulty with.

I seriously do find getting through Christmas with my mother, in her current situation, pretty difficult, though ... things can be very unpredictable.

My sympathies.

Christmas is awful when the family causes great distress.

I am grateful every year now that I am an orphling.

How do you celebrate (if you do) ... as an orphling, I mean?

Friends.

That makes sense.

I usually debrief with one after the event.

I enjoy Christmas with my family and have always done that. There were Christmasses when things were not really harmonious - tell me a family where it was like that. Never anything serious and forgotten fast or made fun of -by my father - till things just settled.

Just looking at the BBC's news site & stumbled upon the stress-o-meter,first offered in 2000:

BBC online readers could complain about anything, which they did, with relish. Unfortunately the stress-o-meter broke down under the pressure:



More gigabytes have now been added to help cope.:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1715909.stm

Hooo boy, do I know what you mean, msolga.

My dad had early onset Alheimer's -- he was only in his 60s when he started forgetting all of us. It was heartbreaking and emotionally draining to see him. I got really angry at my mom for not going to see him as often as I felt that she should.

And then one day it hit me -- he wasn't sad, we were. He'd just forgotten. It wasn't anything personal. If he seemed agitated it was more likely from the disruption of his normal schedule and his response to my sadness -- kind of like a kid can tell when you're sad so they get sad without really understanding why. I realized that my (infrequent) visits (I live far away from where he died) were more about me wanting some kind of acknowledgement that he simply couldn't offer. Once I made peace with that life was much easier for both of us, I think.

Not the bah humbug you were looking for but I feel your angst having lived it myself.

Take care and be merry.

Oy msolga. I don't even know where to start, I'm thinking that in my 65 years I've had 1 xmas I enjoyed. That was a happenstance when I happened to spend xmas with my grandparents on their farm in the USA. On xmas eve my grandfather and I went up into the hills and cut us a tree and we spend the evening making decorations (stringing popcorn, cranberries, eating cookies, listening to music on the radio and looking forward to the home-made gifts (shirts and stuff my grandmother made) I got a lump of coal in my stocking but also a silver dollar and some candies. I was about 10 yrs old. EVERY other xmas was shear hell. This year Lady Diane and meself will have Osso here for steak and baked potatos with dessert of Diane made apple pie. It will be nice and we will miss not having Roger here this year.

I'm going to bring these people some green vegetables..

Re Christmas/holiday letters, I haven't sent many in my time - just a year or two when I didn't want to write full out notes to batches of people after some big life change. So it's been a while. This year I wrote up a letter to people I lost touch with after my move at Christmas time 2005.. but still have their street addresses, or I think I do. Will add handwritten note to each. It'll be interesting to see if I get any responses.

On the bah part, I fully get the alzheimer's conundrum, and also remember the Christmas eve my father went out for a walk and after a while I heard scratching noise at the front door - he had fallen and gotten back to the door. Extremely low hemoglobin, turned out to be from a bleeding ulcer. That was the start of some very down years to come. Sorrowful memory.

Chipmunks roasting on an open fire . . .

Do I smell freshly roasted Alvin in the air?!

Smells delicious!