Thanksgiving / Holidays

[LindaKoz]

I am really concerned about how to handle the upcoming holidays. I'm planning to attend a grief support seminar on this topic and hope they offer some tips to make it manageable. I also made arrangements for my son and I to go to the beach on Thanksgiving and the day after. I just don't think I can be with my family and pretend that all is well.

The past few years Brian and I cooked Thanksgiving for his children, grandchildren, and my son. There was always a lot of commotion in our home. The night before we would make as many dishes ahead of time as possible but there would still be a lot to do in the morning. It was hectic but fun. I loved being in the kitchen with him. Brian was the better cook and he really enjoyed it. He always handled the turkey and I would make the side dishes--with his help. There was so much love in that kitchen and our table was filled with family and food. How am I going to get through this year? The beach will be quiet and serene. I hope I can find some solace for my broken soul. We're not going to attempt turkey or any usual Thanksgiving dishes. I guess we will create new traditions and new memories.

I'm also not sure how to handle Christmas or New Year's Eve. Both of these holidays are going to be so difficult without Brian. We had already talked about what we wanted to do for New Year's Eve this year. There's a bed and breakfast about an hour away from our home where we stayed for a night last winter. We were going to try to get a room and have dinner in their wonderful restaurant. It was going to be such a romantic evening -- just me and my love. Romance was high on our list of priorities and we did it well. I cherish my memories but they also break my heart.

Any ideas on getting through the holidays? I welcome all suggestions and tips. Thanks for listening and for caring, my friends. This journey is hard but it would be harder without all of you.

Peace, love, and blessings,

Linda

[Fredzgirl]

I hope someone comes up with some ideas for the holidays. I don't have any. I wish I could just skip them. Thanksgiving will be hardest for me I think. Fred was the cook in our home but on Thanksgiving he left it up to me. Even so, he was in the kitchen, offering help, checking out the progress and giving advice. My children have their own families, their Father usually invited them to his home, and they have in-laws to entertain. I would really just like them to go on and leave me out of it. But I don't think they will. They won't want me to be alone.

Fred was Jewish and I was raised Christian. The first year we were together he wouldn't have anything to do with the Christmas tree. But every year after, he was buying ornaments and later putting the lights on the tree with me! We had a menorah as well. Oh, last year he bought a train to put around the tree! But Christmas won't be as hard. Christmas is for children and I'll enjoy being around my grandkids.

Can we just skip Thanksgiving???

Fredzgirl

[derby]

My friend,

Your holiday away with your son sounds like it will be an opportunity for peace to surround you as the ocean and waves can help sometimes with our healing. We usually hosted Thanksgiving here, but this year my sister is hosting and my son is going with his girlfriend's family to the mountains. I have encouraged him to go and I am staying at my sisters thanksgiving eve and then having my nieces take turns staying with me the remainder of the holiday week-end. Christmas eve I am planning on having our annual drop-in as it is important to Derek. I did buy a large white candle to light in rememberence of Dean for Christmas Eve. Hoping that will allow me to feel his love and presense. ( Unscented of course as not to bother those with sensitivites) I don't think however I can do the xmas eve church service, at least not at my church this year as that was something Dean always did and my sisters and I sang xmas carols to him as he neared his final hours of life. New Years~~~~never liked it anyway and I don't feel like letting go of 2009 with alot of people around. Not sure of that holiday yet at all. I always cooked pork and kraut as it was Dean's favorite. So many things to think about with the holidays. For me personally, I think being with my family Thanksgiving and Xmas will be helpful. It will be tender for them and tears will fall. We will feel the loss in our hearts. New Year's Eve~~maybe junk food, good movie, internet. That is one holiday eve I want to be alone to allow myself to feel, to cry, to do whatever I want. That will be my gift to me. Blessings all, Debbie

[MartyT]

Dear Ones,

I've collected dozens of helpful articles on coping with the holidays; you'll find links to them on the Coping with Holidays page of my Grief Healing Web site.

See also Creating Personal Grief Rituals.

[steely]

Due to lack of interest the Holiday's have been cancelled this year.

I feel like sending everyone I know a note. Christmas is going to be a nightmare. It was our special time of year because of a gift I gave him the first year we were married. I gave him a leather coat, he actually cried. From then on it was our time of year. I can't bear to even think about it.

[LindaKoz]

I'm with you on this one Steely. I don't want any presents. The only gift that would make me happy would be to have Brian back and I know that can't happen. The only gifts I want to give out are the guitars I bought for Brian's grandchildren. I saw them in a catalog shortly before Brian died and we talked about buying them. I bought them the week after he died. I will give them to Connor and Bella as gifts from their "Boom Boom."

I wish I could just hibernate and sleep from Thanksgiving through about mid-January. Then I wouldn't have to feel the pain or remember the memories of our wonderful holidays. I miss him so much.

Peace, love, and blessings,

Linda

[Kat2005]

I'm with you guys. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to blink and be in mid January already!!! I don't know how I will be able to go through the holidays without my love. Our families are very small, so I really can't just ignore the holidays. My mom is in her mid 80's and she wouldn't understand. I try to fake it when I am in front of her so she won't worry about me. I just don't want to let go of 2009 for some reason. I know I will definitely spend New Year's Eve by myself. It will be me and my journal.

Take care,

Kat

[David'sGirlStill]

Hi my heart friends,

I so agree with you all. My husband left this earth Feb 23rd, 2009. Our 32nd wedding anniversary would have been Feb 17. I want to sleep until the end of Feb. Our daughter is 28, we are voluntering at the homeless shleter on Thanksgiving and going to Florida for Christmas. As far as everyone else, the holidays have been cancelled! I do feel bad for my mom but I have having a hard enough time just trying to take care of my daughter and myself.

You are all in my thoughts and prayers.

Phyllis

[azusaman]

I don't know why, but this doesn't seem to be as big an issue to me. I have been invited to my ex-wife and her husband's home for Thanksgiving which my wife and I always attended together. My son and granddaughter will be there and I love seeing them in this holiday atmosphere. Maybe I'll lose it when I get there and not being with my wife. Don't know.

Best to all,

Ted

[LindaG]

Linda-

I think the best advice I have received from my local Grief Counselor is to plan something different for Thanksgiving and Christmas. A new tradition or something out of the norm of what you had done in recent memory. My Aunt lost her husband ten years ago and we had always gone to her home for Thanksgiving or Christmas when I was a kid as she is a great cook. After he died, she stopped entertaining. I wrote her a note to thank her for all that she did to help me get thru the funeral, etc and I asked her to host Thanksgiving as my Mom and I could not stand to remain in our area alone that day. She is about two hours from where we live by car. She called me and thanked me. She said my two cousins had suggested it but she told them it had to come from Linda. If Linda wants it than we do it. It will still be sad and a reminder of who is missing but there is comfort in spending time with family. My Mother has been at my house for 32 days - every day - she too will find comfort in traveling to this house as well.

Christmas is a whole other ball game as that was our favorite holiday. I've planned to meet friends and family in December for lunch and conversation so I don't miss opportunities with people I love one on one. I may travel a few days over the New Years weekend and spend a few days with my father who is 900 miles away and keep Christmas simple - Mass and a quiet dinner with my Mom. We planted a small pine tree next to my husband's grave stone and my Mom suggested that we decorate it in December as he loved to decorate the tree.

I would say keep it simple and comfortable. In January, I may lement over any plans that I followed thru with but I feel too much isolation will not help me right now. I hope this helps.

- Linda G

[furkid]

Good discussions everyone.

Thanksgiving we usually took turns between his family and mine, but I think I'm just going to my family from now on.

Christmas - I don't want to think about. That is going to be so hard. Even last year, we had trouble making both families because his sister decided to have it later to acomodate her grown children, but didn't let us know. Randy was feeling so poorly although we didn't know yet that he had lymphoma because they had decided it was something else. He went to the Hospital New Year's Day and never came home again. He spent 4 month's in Roswell, with only a short brake to a terrible Nursing Home. The Cancer was in his spine as well as other places, and he had become paralyzed.

I was still going to try to get together with his family and give small gifts, but now their celebration conflicts with my own families.

I know I don't want to bother putting up a tree or anything. The fur-kids (cats & ferrets) get their gifts in stockings so, they don't need a tree for that. There will be no gifts to or from Randy. No one stops over to my house during the holidays, so maybe I'll just skip it this year.

I like the person who said "Due to lack of interest . . . " Here, Here!

PK

[DeeGee]

I am back at home after being gone to the West Coast for a nice long visit with my sister and her family. Got the H1N1 flu while there - 2 adults and 2 children got it, 1 adult and 1 child did not get it. Everyone survived okay - the kids ran high fevers, adults low grade fevers.

Thanksgiving: Last year John was so weak and ill from chemo and had no appetite that we just stayed home. I cooked a small turkey and made the dinner but he could not eat it. Christmas he was a little better, simply due to timing of the chemo treatment, so we spent 1 1/2 hours at a family gathering and then he asked me if we could leave, so we did. I went back a little later on that day myself, once I got him home and settled in.

This year for Thanksgiving? I have no current plans. I know there will be invitations from my children. I am unsure as to how I will feel on that day, so have decided not to make any firm plans and just wait until I see how I am doing at the time.

Christmas: I have three grandchildren, so skipping Christmas is not an option. This was not a huge holiday for the two of us, ever, other than for the small children. I will put up a shortened version of my usual decorations, which is what I did last year. My son always has the gathering at his large home, so I will go there. It is close enough to my home that if I feel like leaving early I can easily do so. I always bring the spiral cut ham and make my own special scalloped potatoes, cole slaw, and pickled beets - so I will still cook.

I have been certainly feeling somewhat more down along with some returning tearfulness since I have returned home. I expected it and am just allowing it to occur.

DeeGee

[Korina]

I have already made it through Thanksgiving up here in Canada, partly in thanks to this forum. Christmas will be so tough. I have always loved Christmas, and so did Scott. We always bought each other tons of gifts, filled each other's stockings - we loved watching each other open gifts. One year, visiting my family at their hotel/tavern (you know, the small town old kind), as Scott always did his shopping on the last day, he went down to the bar and wrapped up an ashtray and pool chalk from the pool table for my dad. My dad didn't know what to think! Scott always cracked everyone up. Anyhow, this year would have been such a special Christmas as it will be our daughter's first. But quite honestly, I think I have gotten through the worst day - Father's Day - as it was only 2 days after he died. I had been planning his first Father's Day gift...wow, sobbing at the thought.

That all said, just before signing in, I completed our travel plans to go to visit Scott's family for Christmas, and mine for New Years. And actually, Scott's mother will be hosting Christmas Dinner for the first time in 19 years, since her husband, Scott's father, died. Our little Kailyn has really helped us all through this horrible time, and continues to do so. I need to be around family at this time, as I would just fall apart if I was alone (even with Kailyn). And Kailyn deserves to be around her family. I know it will be such a mixed bag of emotions, but I will play each day be ear, and no doubt will light lots of candles, as my Scott loved them.

Korina

[furkid]

Gosh Korina, more power to you girl. I never had human kids, just the fur-kind, and I can not fathom having to do the first year alone. I know divorce people do it, but are we allowed to think it might be harder for us?

Is there somewhere, written down in the last 100 years, what the etiquette is for dealing with the spouse's family, after a death, with the holidays? I just want to know what my older relatives grew up knowing. I've decided that Thanksgiving will be with my family from now on, but I'm not sure about Christmas. The timing isn't working out with his family anymore. Also there're birthdays, weddings, etc. . . . . . . I love my husband's mother dearly. But my sister-in-law said I didn't need to worry about Christmas, etc. and I don't know what to do. Since there were no children, Randy was my only real tie to them, but I don't want to abandone them either. I'm so confused.

[Rochel]

I don't know why, but this doesn't seem to be as big an issue to me. I have been invited to my ex-wife and her husband's home for Thanksgiving which my wife and I always attended together. My son and granddaughter will be there and I love seeing them in this holiday atmosphere. Maybe I'll lose it when I get there and not being with my wife. Don't know.

Best to all,

Ted

I must say Ted you sound rather positive tonight...I'm glad that Thanksgiving won't be a problem...you don't think anyway...Have you heard "Rescue Blues" Ryan Adams...heard it tonight for the first time..pretty cool...

[Korina]

If you have a good relationship with your inlaws, to me, there is no reason you shouldn't spend time with them, holidays or otherwise, though you probably shouldn't worry about splitting your time 50-50. A good friend of mine, divorced, continues to spend a lot of time with her ex mother-in-law, and though there are children involved, I am sure she would anyhow. In fact, it seems to me that her mother-in-law depends on her a lot (which I guess can be a good thing or a bad thing...).

Korina

[laurieb]

Korina

I have so much respect for your strength through the loss of your Scott. You are quite a phenominal person and it is no wonder why you and Scott had such a strong wonderful relationship. As much as I am in such pain and miss my husband so so much after so many years together, I can't imagine going through this with and infant and still be positive, loving and be there for others.

Huge

Laurie

[Korina]

I can say that my relationship with Scott made me a stronger person both because we went through and survived tough times and also because he had great confidence in me in regards to the political work I was involved in, situations where you have to stand up on your own. He also made me and more aware of other's feelings (I hate to admit it, but I used to be quite cavalier in this regard). Thank you, Baby. I know that having Kailyn also gives me strength, as I have no choice but to get up each day because she depends on me - so to that end, I don't know if this is strength or instinct. But she is also a part of Scott, and I promised him, as he lay on life support, that I would take care of her. She is the product of our love. I also know that I could NOT do this (survive this journey) without this forum and many special friends and family. I am grateful for all of you

Korina