My beloved Dad has been gone for 7 years. He died in October 2012. The first Christmas was 'bloody awful' his favourite word lol. My only sibling, my brother decided to take his kids to his new partner's house for dinner ( they didn't want to go), so to keep the peace we drove an hour Christmas morning to his house to take my Mum and have family time. When we go there the new partner was running around getting preparations ready for going to her family dinner. We may have been offered a coffee, I don't remember. We exchanged gifts as she announced she was in a rush to get out the door to help get their big dinner started. We left shortly after, very quiet on the ride home, the five of us facing the rest of Christmas Day on our own. I'm embarrassed to say I let it get to me and couldn't face cooking the dinner. My Mum, who I now realize was already on the dementia train, and I fell asleep, slept most of the day, but when we woke up my kids who were in their twenties had heated all the left overs from Christmas Eve, every frozen appetizer from the fridge and set a wonderful, crazy Christmas table.
I smartened up and put on a happy face and a good time was had by all, except me of course, but I faked it til I made it. Every year since we have had a variation on the unorthodox Christmas dinner, and last year it was another challenging year as I brought my Mum from the Care Home for the day. After the trauma of getting her wheelchair up and through the garage door, I discovered they had not toileted before I picked her up, even though they insisted when I asked that they had ( whiff of odd smell in her room). I won't traumatize you with the details, let's just say it was downhill from there. My daughter left in tears to go with her BF to his family. I ended up giving her an omelet while we sat with her, and after taking her back to the home my son and his GF, my husband and I ended up on the couch eating frozen pizza and giant Toblerone bar while watching the Grand Dame documentary.
so....here comes the point...
What I have learned from the last 7 years that there comes a time when you have to say I/we can't keep doing what I/we have always done. Christmas will never be the same as it was when my Dad was here, and my Mum did not have dementia. I am sad about that, but this year I am determined to revive the Christmas dinner for the simple reason that I have also missed setting my festive table, and seeing the faces of my loved ones laughing and enjoying each other's company. I am not going to bring my Mum home but we will visit her Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, my Dad is gone and my brother and his now wife, and his kids will not be joining us so there will be faces missing, but the ones who will be here deserve to have the best of me, so I am going to try very hard to have a Happy Christmas. I wish the very best Christmas you can manage to all of you on the dementia train.
Thanks for listening!