Anyone else dreading Christmas?

[tower84]

This will be my first Christmas without my mum. Last year I hosted Christmas for my family and inlaws.
This year I will split between inlaws and my brother's.
On Christmas day I will be with inlaws and I really don't know how I will cope. They are lovely people but it won't be the same.
On Boxing Day I will be with brother and other sister. I just know we will all be really emotional.
How do you cope?

[DawnOfTheDeementedDead]

I'm sorry you lost your mum.

My mum died three years ago this month. Christmas time, birthdays, mothers day... they are all hard. But you do get through it. The first Christmas after she'd passed my siblings and i went up to her grave with flowers and spent a bit of time there, talking to her, telling her how excited the kids were, funny things like that. It did help.

I also found taking five minutes to myself helpful when it was all getting too much. ut it's ok to be emotional, it's ok to miss her - and people should understand that.

[Moomoomie]

My father died suddenly on 17 th December nearly 11 years ago.
Christmas is very hard every year for me, but I put a brave face on for my children. The following Christmas after he died was our very first family Christmas with our adopted children, it was such a bittersweet occasion as my dad loved Christmas and would have adored his grandchildren.
I think you may need to make some new traditions and definitly take some time out to remember your mum.My thoughts are with you.

[tower84]

Taking time out to remember her makes sense. Maybe I will take dc's to cementery on Christmas Eve. So difficult as family is very fragmented at moment. (Living all over country)

[whitecloud]

tower 84 - really feel for your. I lost both parents within a year of each other and the first Christmas without them was very hard. I found talking to my brother on the phone before I went to my in-laws on Christmas Day a real help. Be prepared to find being with the other family difficult. It really isn't the same and highlights what you have lost. If you are tearful or want time alone I am sure they will understand.

It will soon be my 4th Christmas without my parents and I don't feel so bad this year. So it does get better and you are able to remember the happy times you had. When I was full of grief I thought I would never get through it, but you do. Am thinking of everyone who has lost someone close and is finding the thought of Christmas difficult.

[esor]

Hi, we lost both our mum and dad in the same year and we spent that first Christmas together as a family. For me it was hard but I think that I was prepared for that and it was not as bad as I imagined, I had kind of braced myself for it. The children really helped, being together really helped and being prepared to be sad helped too. It was the everyday stuff that I found very difficult, things that would catch you out, like the first tooth lost or just the everyday stuff that you would have picked up the phone to share with your mum. Going into a suitcase and discovering my mum's cardigan that I had forgotten I had put there, that kind of stuff, things that you cannot prepare for and takes your breath away at the shear grief of it.

But you do come through it, slowly and painfully. The gaping hole of your loss is always there it is just not as painfull to look at as it once was. I wish you all the very best at Christmas, be prepared to accept people's kindness and understanding and you will get through it.