What are you doing for Christmas?

Barrow I'll be thinking of you.It seemed I might also be alone-we might have got together. But DD and SIL have just invited me to spend Christmas with them in London .Train ticket booked (7.45 a.m.on Christmas Eve) weather permitting I'll be in Paddington by 10 a.m.
In their small flat it'll be a low key time with no children.They are TT but DD is a good cook and they have lots of books,music,DVDs and games.Probably a walk on Hampstead Heath on Boxing Day
Good wishes to all you busy,busy GN cooks

Lovely Maniac - I am sure you will have a great time

Decorating the house we have moved into! Extension is almost finished, starting on kitchen (needs re-plastering, decorating etc.

We are going out for Christmas Dinner and to my Sister's boxing day. Not putting up decorations etc. (no where to put them really).

Will also be visiting Mum in hospital - having planned surgery. So few people want to be in hospital over Christmas so was offered a place very quickly. She does not mind, just wants it done and be out of pain.

For most of my married life Christmas has included nuclear family plus members of the generation above, parents, in laws, aunts & uncles, friends, whoever needed a home for Christmas. But as time moves on the older ones have died and numbers began to shrink. At which point DS married and Christmas expanded to include DDiL's family, mother, sister and partner. Now DS & DDiL have children and SiL has a partner who needs to stay at home to see his children so DS & family alternate Christmases, one year at home with other Grandma and the next year with us. As a result the year they stay at home there are now only three of us in our home, us and DD. The smallest (in number) Christmases I have ever experienced.

I am not unhappy about this, we have had one Christmas like this and will have another one again this year. We will see the others next weekend and again on 28 December. It is just that I am experiencing a new version of Christmas, the same but differerent and it takes a while for it to feel as normal as all the other bigger Christmases.

I'm dreading Christmas this year, not because I'm a Ba-Humbug sort of person but because, after over 30 years of my loving 'doing' Christmas for my (now) 'ex' husband and my three now grown up daughters, everything has gone pear shaped after a previous nuclear sized explosion at the beginning of this year, which resulted in my three daughters and their partners withdrawing any contact between myself, them and my two grandchildren (one of whom I've never met). I am facing my first Christmas alone. I have sent cards and gift cards to everyone (including my grandchildren) but have had no acknowledgement of their being received.
I'm returning to the Gransnet board after being struck down with severe depression.
I wonder...is there any other grans 'out there' who, like me are facing the prospect of Christmas alone and who would think about supporting each other by contacting on here on Christmas day???

Goose!! Is it really you? You cheered me up so much when I was down and it's lovely to hear from you again, even though it's under such sad circumstances. Keep talking. I'm so glad you're back .

OOhh yes Scarlet - I'm back
...can't keep an old goose down y'a know! really need all the support I can get to survive the prospect of a very lonely yuletime:-(

Goose so sorry you will not be seeing your family at Christmas - I truly hope the season will make them rethink and contact you.

I'm not doing anything for Christmas - fair's fair, it's not doing anything for me either... there's the Doctor Who special to look forward to, but that's about all!

Just the two of us and the cats who are racing round the house like the outbreak of WWIII