Nicki
I think most of us have some problems around the holidays as we cannot do "our holiday traditions" as we used to. Christmas has always been a huge holiday for us, including a 15 foot lighted tree on the barn, lights all the way around the house and the barn (600 feet worth) etc etc and so forth! Slowly but surely over the last 21 years I had to cut back on the scale of our decorations because of limited help. Luckily my grandkids love decorating the tree so we make it a party. The three middle ones each invite one or two friends and we have cookies, hot chocolate, toasted marshmallows and in between all of that the tree he gets decorated! Of course it is not just what I would have done, but it gives me great pleasure to watch them argue over where each ornament should go, and tell their friends about where each of the ornaments came from and which ones they made. Do I envy my family that can still go and cut down their own Christmas trees-yes, they always get me a nice one-and I have to stay at home because of snow, of course I do. But I try to find something else to take its place. Now thanksgiving is another story, I have to work very hard to keep my spirits up as I lost my beloved youngest son in a car accident the day before thanksgiving and my mother went into the hospital the same day and passed away two months later. I found that changing our traditions of always having thanksgiving at my house and encouraging the married children to alternate hosting it helps me a lot. I agree with Wheels, 15 is an earth shattering experience J. My daughter was 15 when I broke my neck and now 21 years later we are the best of friends and have found that sweet spot between mother and daughter and caregiver and helper but it definitely was not always that way. Trust me, it will get better. J Maybe you can plan to find the needy person at Christmas, invite them for dinner and give them a small gift to share some of the blessing that you have even though they are different from what you want to do. We try to find an elderly person (im not elderly yet-72 is a spring chicken) LOL, through the senior center here in Reno that has no family and bring them out for the day and usually the staff at the senior center know what they would like and helpless with choosing a present. Have a happy holiday, even if it is not exactly what you want just remember we are all blessed to be able to do what we can, there are so many people we do not have what we have however little it is. Merry Christmas Joan
