You're on your own now. Your LO won't be able to help-or will be needing more attention than ever. We're getting older. Are you going to celebrate as you did before? Hubby will remain in his dementia facility-no point in bringing him home at stage 7. Two of my three kids will be with me for Thanksgiving and they insist on NO change in our traditional meal. It hurts to remember Thanksgiving past (or is it passed). I still find comfort in preparing our traditional meal and am happy that our kids remember it with such fondness. They will take over some of the prep and clean-up. Bill always carved the turkey and I gladly give that chore to my daughter. The empty place at the table will break my heart.
Bluedaze, its breaks our hearts when holidays roll around in these circumstances. Memories are all we have now and we have to carry on in the world without AD for our family and kids sakes as well. they will be good company for you and you should make it a cheerful time for them and do it like always in the past. i can tell you now in my case, i will always set a place for DH and my DDad (RIP) on any holidays i prepare. it just makes me feel better knowing they are not forgotten. and you can take a TV dinner for your DH in the NH later and maybe he will enjoy that alot as well. holidays are not always joyous occassions for everyone..divvi
bluedaze, you are actually doing better than me on Thanksgiving. I am feeling very depressed about it and don't want to even make the meal for my family. I loved sharing the day with him and having my whole family over for dinner.
They may not want a change in the traditional meal but what about a different twist on it? We have some Russian friends and when someone died at the reception afterwards there is a picture of the person with a shot of their favorite liquor sitting next to it. I am thinking if I do the meal, that maybe I will go into the photo albums and find a couple of silly/funny memory type of pictures of him and copying them and having them out.
This time of year is difficult for all the memories that it brings up but it is also special for the same reason.
Bluedaze, since my husband is still at home, my situation is not like yours. Our plans at the moment are that my son and his wife are coming to my house from Houston on Wednesday before Thanksgiving to cook the pies and breads the day before, and to prepare the meal on Thanksgiving. Even though my husband is still at home, my son will have the carving duty. They all want to have the traditional Thanksgiving, so I'm going along with it.
My attitude changed after AD, and I'm perfectly content to go to a Thanksgiving buffet and not cook at all, but my children love tradition and love to cook, hence I am eating out at my own house! <grin> (the only problem is that I'll probably get stuck with clean up duty!)
Christmas is a different matter. My daughter who lives with me says that we should start a new tradition and have a simple dinner for the four of us and just relax and appreciate celebrating Christ's birth - and let my husband enjoy his new videos. I think she may have something there. <grin>
I am not in your shoes yet, but your feelings break my heart. So many of these threads talk about the importance of accepting change. Your LO will always be in your heart whether you are sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table or anywhere else. It is easy for me to say, enjoy the time with your children you will have with you even though the most important person in your life is not there with you physically. I think I have even read some of your posts that have that on-going theme for all of us...our lives are different now. Even now, I try to focus on that glass half full philosophy instead of the glass half empty. It isn't easy, but sometimes it is all we can do. It will be great having your children with you. Reassigning traditional responsibilities can be like the passing of the torch and even opens up healing conversations about what is going on. The carving of the Turkey passed from my grandfather to me. The last couple of years he was able to participate, he took me aside and showed me how to do it "his way". Now it is a source of fond rememberence that he chose me to take over his carving duty and I feel his hands guiding me every year. Maybe your daughter will experience the same warmth.
We have a "tablecloth" tradition at our house on Thanksgiving. Last year we did dinner at daughters and I took the "tablecloth." After dinner everyone was encouraged to write or draw something on the tablecloth, anywhere they wanted. Some artistic ones drew memorable pictures, like graduation cap, first deer, squirrel, school, house or whatever including one 6 year old drawing her hand. Put a date on it and next year use the same cloth and do the same thing with different memories on it. Ours is now 6 years old and about full. Everyone loves looking back to what was drawn in the past.
Husband didn't participate but all the children and grandchildren did. I just wrote my name and the date since I am not artistic. You can buy colored pens to use. The first 2 years we use the tablecloth to eat on and then decided it was going to ruin it washing each time.
I don't know who will end up with it after I am gone.
Lynn is home so I don't have the same worries as some of you on that front. But I do still have the same sadness and overwhelming grief. Not due to Lynn but facing these first holidays without my Dad. I just dont think I am going to make it. He wasn't just my Dad, he was my life long best friend, my hero and my rock. I miss him more than I could express in words. Though I do try in my poetry. Mixed with all the normal grief I am still haunted with all the whys and what-if's that surrounded his suicide. Overwhelming and heart breaking.
Not sure what we are going to do.. me I wish I had a fast forward button and could just pass over the whole thing! Bah hum bug! * sigh.... *cry*
Since my wife cannot help at all with holiday preparations, etc., I had planned that we would just have the Thanksgiving buffet here at the retirement home, joined by my sister. Then last night our daughter called to say that she and her family (husband and 2 boys) would come here for Thanksgiving (staying at the family home a 20 minute drive from the retirement home) and do all the cooking and cleanup. They live a 6 hour drive away. Then for Christmas both of our daughters and family will come and take care of everything. I'm not sure at this point what to do about a Christmas tree, since it was my wife who really liked decorating it.
Anything you do to decorate, no matter how small, will be great. It will be so thoughtful because you did it. It may not look the same as the way she did it, but that is okay. It will be great just to have something to share the spirit. Keep it simple and enjoy.
Have you kept the traditional ornaments? It might be nice to get a very GOOD artificial tree, maybe table size, produce the ornaments and get your daughter's family to decorate it at Thanksgiving. Then when Christmas comes have them take all the ornaments home.
(Three years ago the zoo participated in a "festival of trees" where there were dozens of gorgeous, artifical, professionally decorated trees. I bid on one at the last minute and got a really gorgeous 8' tree complete with many handsome ornaments for $200 donation to the zoo. The traditional ornaments haven't been brought out since, and truly, if you don't know the tree is artificial, you can't tell it from a few feet away. And since the lights are already strung on it, it's very quick going up and down. Since my DIL is Jewish, and raising my granddaughter more or less Jewish, they don't have a tree at home, so Sarah loves to see it here. Only my sentimental son misses the old way.)
briegull's idea is great...I know we never throw out any ornaments. We just add to our collection over the years and the ornaments go on the tree year after year. If y'all are collectors and have ornaments from years ago, maybe your wife would remember those.
I keep a tree up year around. Never in a million years did I think I would do that, but I love it and it gives me a great uplift during the drab and cold winter months. I bought one of those pencil trees 5' tall for LR. It has the branches swooping down like some of the unusual shrubbery you see now days. (raft 2000 has them) Load it with clear lights and keep it on during daylight hours fall and winter. Also have a 4' one in my bedroom and it has calico ribbon bows and dolls on it along with the lights. Then I have lighted greenery on top of my kitchen cabinets and I turn those on during the day.
Cheers up the house and is a big uplift for me. One year I loaded it with birds and bird houses but after I bought the new branch swooping tree I couldn't figure anyway to make it look good. You can also use kittens or whatever suits you.
I thought I was the only one...at least that's what my family and friends tease me about! Because of so many things, I have not put up our large family tree in a few years now, but I have a smaller 4 ft tree I keep up year round and change the decorations with the season...Mardi Gras, Easter, July 4th, Halloween and at Christmas it becomes our boy's tree (the cats) with all of their ornaments. Since my husbands illness and so many other things that have gone on, I haven't really had a chance to keep up with the changing seasons, so now it is July 4th all the time. I am pretty patriotic, so it works...and it is a little easier to explain than Halloween or Christmas decorations in April (lol).
Imohr & Stephanie K-G, you're so lucky. I always said that if I had the room, I'd leave the tree up all year. It's always so cheerful. My little 4 ft one is going up the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
bluedaze, I will save $13,000 per year, and still have a very adequate apartment, closer to the elevator which will be a help for my wife. With the economy the way it is, and the huge drop in the stock market, I need to save everything I can.
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions on a Christmas tree. I know my wife will like to see one (as will the kids and grands), so I'll see what I can do. We have been collecting special ornaments ever since we got married 54 years ago, so we have plenty.
In the last few years Christmas, which was always mine AND my DH's favorite holiday, has been fairly drab. Christmas '03 my house was bursting at the seams with family, and though it was stressful on one hand (the crowd, cooking, etc.) it was also a good time. My first time having my son and dil celebrate Christmas with us since they were married. My parents had just moved in with me 2 days before Christmas, and they were able to celebrate with three of their five living kids and our families. Christmas '04 was so much quieter, but I did have my Mom and Dad with us. '05 was the first Christmas having lost my Mom in July, and my DH was diagnosed with Alzheimer's on my birthday, Nov. 1, '05. No doubt, I had a lot to be in a funk about. '06 was even harder. Couldn't get in to the spirit. Shopping was arduous. DH was NOT his usual "Mr. Christmas" self. '07 was the worst ever. DH was delusional, nasty, intimidating, demanding, I couldn't shop, I couldn't attend SIL's annual Christmas party because of how DH was. My kids didn't have any gifts from US under the tree cuz I couldn't get out. The one time I did was to get stuff for granddaughter, and I barely got it mailed cross country in time. AWFUL!!! Thankfully our two adult children who lived in other states had sent packages so our two younger kids did have stuff to open on Christmas day.
This year..................................don't get this wrong. OK? Christmas 2008, I am going to have to act as if DH is not even a factor in Christmas if I wish to enjoy it at all. My son has a family of his own, and they live within a 3 hour drive for the first time. It's a given now that Thanksgiving and Christmas will be spent with us. I intend to do my best to decorate and celebrate as if I were making all the plans and all the decisions on my own. I'll get caregivers here for a couple of shopping trips, and even to get our tree. DH whined and complained, and was unable to help in our annual tradition of going to a tree farm and cutting down our own tree. He also was unable to get Christmas lights put up outdoors.
I am just bound and determined to NOT ALLOW AD to ruin things, and I WILL HAVE THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS MY WAY in 2008!!!!!!!
Marsh, great that you've saved the ornaments. Now, get your kids to take them home with you AND INVITE YOU FOR NEXT YEAR, IN ADVANCE! You've done it long enough at your place. Good for you for downsizing. I've got this big 4-br, attic & basement house built about 100 years ago, but updated now and again. We've been here, and accumulated here, since 1970. Now is not the time to sell and I don't have any particular pressure to do so as long as my husband can get up and down stairs (with a stair glide) so I don't have much pressure on myself to weed through stuff. And there is such a LOT of stuff.
They say every cloud has a silver lining. My company had been in its facility for fifteen years, and since I practically lived there, I had loads of stuff, personal as well as professional. I am a terrible pack rat when it comes to anything paper -- books, journal articles, you name it. At last count, I had 34 filing cabinets full of reprints, reports, contract stuff, etc., plus half-a-dozen bookcases. The company was going belly-up and I slowly and reluctantly started to sort through my filing cabinets and bookcases plus fifteen other offices (including Accounting, with years' of financial records, personnel records, etc), eight labs, kitchen, reception, publishing, etc. Blurgh! Well, then the landlord got in a pinch, and locked me out with two hours' warning, so he could seize the company assets to help pay HIS bills. (Totally illegal, of course, but not too much I could do about it. By the time I'd talked to an attorney, the landlord was nowhere to be found. Plus, he was in such dire financial straits that suing him would have been a waste of my money even if I could track him down.)
Aside from being totally hysterical for those two hours, trying to grab the most important stuff and jam it in my car (with the "help" of my husband, no less!!!) ... well ... that sure did save me all the time and effort of having to go through everything, try to sell used equipment, shred all those documents, and make room at my house for anything I couldn't bear to part company with.
I have to say, I'm not entirely unhappy with how that turned out.
We have a two story house and have lived here for the last 40 years. It's full of stuff we have collected over the last 40 years. I have talked to my DH about starting to clear out some stuff. He just grins and says he thinks the kids will enjoy going through all this after we're gone. I don't think so.