How has fibro changed what you do for the holidays???

Sugarchic,

Once you have a kid - it's time to start changing all the traditions. When my kids were small, we turned Christmas into a week long event. Christmas morning was off limits - we didn't go anywhere so the kids could enjoy their presents and not feel rushed. We visited one side of the family on Christmas eve in the afternoon and opened gifts. We visited the other side of the family late in the afternoon on Christmas day. We either visited others during the week or had an open house party in the afternoon the Saturday before Christmas.

You'll go crazy trying to please everyone and knock yourself into a flair. Start now while your kid is small to remove the craziness of cramming everything into one day.

You can always start talking about changes for next year during this holiday to give everyone a chance to accept that you will be doing things a bit differently next year.

When my daughter had a baby, we asked how they wanted to handle the holidays and we worked out a schedule that makes everyone happy. It is subject to change as our granddaughter gets older and because we talk about it, my daughter is not afraid of upsetting us.

I used to be a very last minute person when getting ready for the holidays - but I would get it all done! Now, I pace myself over a couple of week's time. It helps me very much. The kids are coming for Thanksgiving and I've been getting ready for 3 weeks. I'm not so stressed either - guess that's a good thing.

I used to do all the holidays at my house. Ppl would ask what time should we come? Never volunteered to make something, just come and wait to be waited on. I worked full time and volunteered at my church, took my children to all their activities and rushed home to bake and cook and clean. I finally brought it down to just Christmas Eve. I still cook, but trimmed that considerably. I used to bake every cookie and cake and pie. I now buy cheesecake (must have), and there is a place a ride away, but so worth it, for the best pumpkin pie. I still make a few treats that my children and niece and nephews like. My mother just asked me yesterday to make the cookies she likes so much. I try to buy gifts online, to avoid standing on lines at the stores. My back gives out and I get really, really sick!

Several yrs ago, my DH's sister wasn't going to be home for Christmas and their brother usually went there for Christmas. I said invite him for Christmas Eve for the dinner. Well, the brother had plans to go out drinking w/ the guys from work, but he would be more than happy to come over- he would let me know what time- after he recovered from his hangover and I could cook him a fresh dinner, he didn't want the leftovers. My DH (almost became the ex-DH) said Yeah, ok. I was livid. I told DH Christmas Eve or forget it. This is not Alice's Restaurant! My BIL hasn't come over for the holidays since. I was having a terrible time w/ work and just made it to the holiday break (teacher). I needed to slow down. I still hadn't been dx w/ FMS.

Sugar, B C, 'Before Children' my DH and I would leave work on Christmas Eve to visit my parents, have dinner, & open presents before my father had to leave for work, then we would go over to my MIL's place after she got home from work, open presents and visit. We would leave to go the church my husband attended as a child for Midnight Mass. Go home, sleep and go back to work, yes on Christmas Day. When our son was born, all that changed, my family came over our house on Christmas Eve, my MIL, BIL and DH's aunt and uncle came to our house to visit and see the baby open his gifts. You will drive yourself crazy trying to drag your little one to visit all the family. It will wear both of you out and the joy and beauty of the season will be lost.

We are having a very quiet Thanksgiving, just the five of us and the dog. lol. I sent out all my Thanksgiving cards to friends on Saturday, so proud of myself! Past few yrs I was lucky if they got out on Tues before Thanksgiving. Now I have to start writing the Christmas cards, oh well.

Life has changed, but as long as my family is together, my Christmas wish has been granted. It really is about being w/ the ones you love, the whole message of Christmas is LOVE. I think most of us remember the loving relatives who shared the holidays, the laughing and the loving, not really what was under the tree or how many cookies we ate. It's the 'who', not the 'what'. IMHO.

God bless.  Alice. 

sugarchic9985 said...
Well, this year we are breaking the no Christmas stuff until after Thanksgiving rule. I always insist on decking out the house, and especially this year as it is our son's first real Christmas. But I have been so miserable lately, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to be the one to do it. I'm having a really good day so far today, so we decided we are going to go ahead and put up the decorations because I'm not sure when the next time I will feel like doing it will be.

I haven't exactly figured out how we are going to work out Christmas this year, but something is going to have to give. We normally get up around 6 to get to my parents at 8 to open gifts and then go to my aunt's at 10 and then get to his mom's around 1. With a one year old this year, I don't know how I will be able to do all that.

Honey, sometimes you just have to make sacrifices. If you can't go to all of them don't feel bad. You have a one year old, who, trust me, will get cranky doing a lot of running and being around a lot of people. If you have to skip one of them, then don't fret. Maybe you could work it out so that you can go to one or two of the places the day after Christmas. I'm sure they wouldn't mind making a compromise. I wish you luck. I hope you and your son have a great Christmas.

I just wish I had some little kids to blame and then I wouldn't have to go to every relative's house for Christmas. I'm trying to get out of some stuff, by using my son's New Year's Eve wedding. What will I do next year? Diane

I too used to do an incredible amount of work during the holidays. I invited everyone over, and I did all the cooking. For Thanksgiving I usually started cooking 3 days in advance, made my own bread and cut it into cubes and dried them for the stuffing, then made pumpkin pie, cherry pie, apple pie...well you get the idea. On Thanksgiving day I got up at 4am and cooked all day long: turkey and stuffing and homemade gravy, broccoli-cheese casserole, garlic mashed potatoes, mushrooms parmesan, homemade rolls and cranberry relish. I made everything from scratch.

Then on Christmas Day I would do Thanksgiving all over again, except that I also made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast! I used to make Christmas gifts for all my friends: homemade stollen or cookies or gingerbread.

It's so hard for me to believe now that I was able to do all of that!

This year I'm just going to throw a turkey breast into the crockpot, and since we are gluten free, and we're trying to go grain and sugar free too, we won't even have gluten-free stuffing. All of the recipes that I will make are very basic: mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, sugar-free cranberry sauce....my husband will help when I need him to.

I know that my adult kids miss the big feasts, but my theme now is "simplify". Fibro and RA and lupus and everything else make it so that I have to conserve my energy, not spend it recklessly.