Pre Christmas support thread - if full of seasonal joy, please start your own threads

I always tell everyone that the shortest day of the year is my happiest. I call it the Slump Day rather than the Hump Day. From that day on it's all uphill until we reach the hump of the year. Just the thought of Christmas makes me feel exhausted. I can't wait for the GCs to find me so boring that they stay at home and I shall be allowed to go and stay in a nice quiet hotel with a well-stocked kindle and a bottle of port and box of chocolates.

janerowena I do agree with you about SAD. I have a lamp which I use every day and it helps a bit. Of course the midwinter festival has always been a festival of light to celebrate light coming back after the shortest day. People have always needed some sort of celebration in the middle of winter to help them through to spring. Unfortunately Christmas has become such a commercial, stressful time with high expectations instead of a simple happy festival of light and hope in the dark days of winter.

I agree, wisewoman.

I find it interesting that no-one has mentioned the extra burden of SAD that so many people have at this time of year. So, at a time when people feel they ought to be happy, see others feeling happy, they feel as if they are wallowing through mud every day. On top of all the shitty stuff that life throws at you. Christmas in general makes me feel very grumpy.

I wish I were a bear.

We'll said

wisewoman; you have hit the nail on the head with your excellent comment.I feel this thread has been soured rather, and that is a great shame, as it was meant to help like minded people explore their feelings at this time of year.Nobody is looking for a way to 'fix things' there are things that can never be fixed, ever, and we all know that.I sympathise with all Gransnetters that dread Christmas for whatever reason, and if we need to cry at times, then that is good too.

When we have great sadness to deal with we all need to be able to have a little "wallow" from time to time so that we can paste the smile on and get on with life. There seems to be an assumption that because people talk about their feelings on Gransnet they can't handle them in their public lives. I would have thought that one of the great gifts of gransnet is that it allows people to feel they are not alone in needing a "wallow". It is often precisely because they/we have a chance to pour out the sadness that they/we can get on with life with a smile!

anno, of course you have the right to disagree with me and to say so, as I have with you. I trust we can do it politely.

I don't think your fear of being alone at Christmas is irrational at all. In fact it sounds extremely rational to me, given the experiences you outline.

But that's beside the point. There is nothing wrong with having irrational feelings. All I have tried to do is explain how I have coped with feelings of loss and bereavement and loneliness (none of which seem to me to be irrational anyway, just normal) in the hope that someone may find it helpful. Some people clearly haven't found it helpful at all. So be it but they cannot fairly accuse me, as they seem to be doing, of dissing their feelings. I honestly don't think feelings of sadness because of difficult life events are irrational. I do think there are rational/thoughful/behaviour-led ways of dealing with those feelings to reduce the suffering they induce.

I hope you won't be alone this Christmas.

My head thinks it sees where some people are coming from - I have often tried to say there is no big deal to Christmas etc etc etc perhaps as an antidote to my Mum who had a very sentimental approach to it. I deplore the nauseating jolly Christmas music with which our ears are assaulted (No I do not "wish it could be Christmas every day-ay-ay") and the saccharine commercials on TV which are entirely unrealistic but totally rub salt into wounds of bereavement, divorce,marital problems, financial worries, unemployment, distant DGC, alienated DGC, "lost" children etc. However my heart sees (?) things differently. I tried to sing my way through Away in a Manger with DGss today and memories of that first godawful Christmas after we lost our baby son came flooding back along with memories of happier days with my parents and our magical "German" Christmas Eve or when our DDs were little. And I snivelled a bit. I am hugely lucky that we will be together this C Day, but I am acutely aware that for many people all the enforced jollity to which we are subjected is twisting a knife in an already painful wound. Thanks Jess for a compassionate thread.

Bags, I respect your right to say what you think. However, I also reserve my right to disagree with you. I don't have rational feelings about Christmas. As I think I have said on another thread, Christmas spent in hospital, deprived of contact with parents and sisters at the age of 6, has given me a lifelong - and no doubt irrational - fear of being alone at Christmas.

I've only 'ranted' about being told to bugger off. What I said about December misery (of whatever cause) was calm and well meant, as people who really know me understand. People appear to making all kinds of assumptions about my life that they have no right to make.

I'm glad some people understand where I'm coming from and, I repeat, I wish you all well in the sadnesses of your lives.

So childish to act this wy on the thread! As someone who has been widowed this year Christmas is going to be unbearable in many ways, but as a very sensible 35 year old sonsaid, "Mum, we ned to start new family traditions from this year, the children are excited and ALl of us miss dad especially this year will be tough for us all, but we will get tthrough it" however, some people on gransnet are not as fortunate to have lost a loved one but still have close familyto rally round, so hold off the ranting and let those of us who are bereaved/away from gc or family, find some comfort here otherwise they willbe frightened to ask for help on these forums. Sorry if I have offended, but please think of each other...after all this is the season of goodwill to all men!

We feel what we feel. End of, I suppose. Personally, I try to control how I feel, because it makes me miserable, and it does pass as the actual date does. Then, as others who have lost children will know, it's not a raw feeling all the time.
I also recognise the right of others to see things in a different light.

Sorry, meant to add to those of you who have lost a loved one too.

Just stay buggered off this thread Bags - why are you bring so needlessly provocative? Don't answer that

Bags is back (from Rotakids; aren't kids good for the soul?) and Bags just wants to say that on a public forum she, like all other members, can wade in where the hell she likes. She can also say things other people don't like, just as they can say things she doesn't like. She can respond by arguing her case or she can jolly well lump it.

Besides which, she did not refuse sympathy to anyone. She was told that she didn't understand by someone who cannot know that. She feels sympathy for reasons which no-one on gransnet knows. It's possible no-one ever will, certainly not those who presume to think that she is being unkind when all she has set out to do is explain how she copes with hard things, in an effort to be of possible help to someone else in a hard place. They may hate that attempt of hers. That's their choice, but they have no right to tell her not to say it.

Bags is not full of Christmas joyousness (which she understood from the OP was the bar from the thread ) and she maintains her right to say her piece on a public forum. She maintains that no-one has a right to tell her where she can and cannot "wade in" on that forum, or how, so long as she keeps within the rules, which she has, so far, on this thread.

She also maintains that we can have some control over how we feel, if we choose. That's not saying feelings are rational; it's saying how we deal with feelings can be rational. No-one has to agree with that, but it is a valid viewpoint based on experience and she's allowed to express it whether people like it or not or want her to express it or not.

So, if anyone thinks she doesn't understand and doesn't feel sympathy for others' sadness, then carry on thinking that, but you're wrong. From Bags's point of view what she wrote before she was told in effect to bugger off the thread was perfectly in order if not what certain people wanted to hear.

It's OK to endeavour to put a brave face on things and, what's more, it's OK to be successful in that endeavour, just as it's OK not to succeed. I wish you all well in the sadnesses of your lives.

These pearls of wisdom about how you should behave and how you should react don't cut it for everyone though. That's like telling someone who,is battling with depression to pull their socks up.

Even the strongest of characters can have a weak spot with something that floors them and those that are floored need support and empathy which I think Jess had in mind when she started this thread.

I have never lost a child or a grandchild but my heart goes out to those of you who have

I do,know what it is like not to have GC's close by. We lived in France when GD1 was born and by the time she was three, we had moved back home. It was too hard for both of us to not be part of her and subsequently GD2's life.

This will be my 6th Christmas since the DGC started to arrive and because they all live nearby we have been with the whole family on Christmas day, sometimes all together, sometimes in sequence. I knew, and appreciated, that I was lucky but happily parroted the 'Christmas is a season, not just a day' to others less fortunate. Until this year when circumstances have changed dramatically - DD1 will be working on Christmas day, her partner + 2 DGC, will spend time with his family (his brother has a new baby), we may see them later on. DGD1, DD2 and her DH will be down south with his family who have just lost their mother. Of course we will see them all at some point, many points, during the Christmas season and I will spend the actual day with my sister (widowed earlier this year and denied her DGC on Christmas day as ex SIL has declared it is HIS turn to have HIS children).

How come the rational approach deserted me and having told everyone it was all fine, we have to adapt, blah, blah, blah, all the platitudes, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably, in private, in the bedroom? Calmed down now, and actually looking forward to a 'different' celebration this year but have been given a small glimpse of the so-called 'irrational' pain, that many of you suffer. You are quite right to say that those of us not affected can never understand what it is like to have Christmas not just disrupted or postponed but totally blighted. I hope you can find some comfort through sharing your thoughts with others in the same boat.

Since when have emotions ever been rational?
They are a mixture of our reactions to life. This depends on so many of our previous experiences of life and all the stresses difficulties and disappointments. Then there is how much, or how little, self confidence we are left with after our parenting and schooling etc.

How many of us are ever completely hang up free. One does not have to have experienced some of the tragic losses some of our GNrs have had.

It's often memories of less than happy times at school or home or whatever that still have a big impact on our general well being and jump out to plague us again at us in times when we are feeling most vulnerable.

There are a huge number of things I find very stressful about Christmas

The effort of trying to get everything right, please everyone probably!
Yes I probably worry too much about it, but that 65 yrs of baggage trying to get out.

Just a thought - it is possible to thoroughly enjoy Christmas and all the preparations as well as having sad thoughts. I love Christmas but then I think about DS1 who will, probably for the rest of his life, be essentially 'alone' at Christmas and I could weep.

from me too - to Marelli and Jess - it must be really hard.

Not wallowing but sometimes feeling as if drowning. I almost stride through December not allowing myself to think about how I do so try not to feel as 17 December approaches. I try to close my mind and not dwell. I tell myself that I am truly blessed because I have other children and now their children - who may never have been if J had lived. However, I know I'm going to struggle very hard indeed as the day gets closer. Just maybe though, this year, I'll manage myself a bit better.
to all those who do struggle - and not merely because it's Christmas. xx

Yes my grandkids have been abroad for a long time and I have only once been with one of them on Christmas morning. I don't feel sorry for myself and make the best of it, but occasionally something pokes me below the belt. I'm happy that my sons will be together for the first time in years this year and hope they enjoy each other's company.
I certainly would not presume to say that I had my emotions all sorted out. Or that there was a hierarchy of suffering.

So yes irrational is fine and I think sometimes it can help to know that you are not the only one with family far away, or family that don't want contact, or have lost a loved one that will always be missed at this time of year, how ever much you distract yourself.
Or just having a down day in this darkest of months. to all of you brave grandparents.

Well why don't you have a Christmas "rational" thread and let others who feel upset discuss their feelings without being accused of wallowing! Surely there is room for rational and occasionally irrational people in Gransnet. I can't begin to imagine what some people have gone through but I know that when my (then) only grandchild was in Australia how much worse Christmas was than any other time of year. There was an advert at the time for American Express cards which said that "Christmas with your first grandchild is priceless" . Every time it came on and took me unaware I had a wee greet. Irrational is ok too.

One thing I picked up from Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is that you can't help the things that happen to you, but you can affect how you react to them, similar to Bags' mother's advice above.

I'm a bit uncomfortable too with the implication that there's a sort of hierarchy of suffering and tragedy and our position within it makes us more or less qualified to express our opinions. We have no idea of what our fellow posters have gone through in their lives.

I'm sorry if that sounds hard-hearted, but I'm in the mean and rational camp with Bags.

Jess very well put.

bags people can't help how they feel and maybe they wish that they could be as rational as you are.

We are all different and feel things differently.