So how was Christmas?

[Italiangreyhound]

Hi guys, don't want to do a boasting thread but how was your Christmas?

Mine was fabulous!

I know not everyone will have had a good time and I know it can be a tough time but ds (adopted this year, now aged 4) and dd (10) managed to have a great, low key Christmas and not be disappointed with their gifts, and get along! So I am happy!

[Italiangreyhound]

Any one else?

Thanks.

[Buster510]

I'm glad you had a great time Italian your Christmas sounds lovely :)

Not so great here :( In a nut shell although being our second Christmas, & still quite low key DS was overly anxious, panicking about presents prior to the event, on the day was pleased but made comments on certain gifts.

We had lunch at mums, something we've done weekly but again this seemed to cause him anxiety, especially around the meal time, something unusual for DS.

We also went down the route that not everything was from Father Christmas. DS is a very more more more more little chap, values material items very highly, having what he perceives as loads is important to him sadly. It was very low key on the present front as a result of this. Although he is very much enjoying his gifts :)

Sadly since the day DS has reverted back to very old behaviours with DH & I, very rejecting towards me again, quite controlling mannerisms.

DH works away & this is the longest he's been back in some time, combined with Christmas I think it's all a little overwhelming for him. He struggles immensely at times with mine & DHs relationship.

So that was Christmas ! Sorry to put a slight dampener on anyone's great day! I would love to hear more positive stories to see if there is hope for our third Xmas next year! Or if in fact I'm doing it all wrong.

[blossom101001]

We had a great Christmas Day! Our first as a family...We broke it down...Very low key...They regulated themselves too which I thought was brilliant! On Christmas Eve we did our own presents as a family...Christmas Daya was Santa then we had family presents and skype to back home to some family on Boxing Day, Saturday and Sunday. Last present received and opened today. Our family is in Australia so post came in today...But we had a great few days...

[Italiangreyhound]

Good news Blossom.

Sorry Buster that it was hard. I hope things will get better.

Buster is there any way you can encourage him to work through these things himself? I don't mean alone, I mean with you guiding him. I mean ask him outright for example, this coming weekend you can do one special thing with mummy and one special thing with daddy, and we can all do one special thing together - what would you like them to be? Would having time with just dad and then with just you be a good idea?

I am not sure how it would work but when you were altogether you could tell each other what you had done, e.g. 'Hey daddy when mummy and me went swimming we pretended to be whales.' 'Great son, that sounds like fun' etc?

A kind of way of daddy validating the time little one has with you and you doing the same for him?

This is my own amateur attempt to make sense of things. If it doesn't make sense to you or anyone else, please ignore!

Do you have a social worker, support worker, attachment worker or educational psychologist you can run ideas past?

[AdventuringAbout]

Glad you had a good Christmas Italian - our first one together was mainly OK, some anxiety, and some grief, but able to talk about both and offer comfort. The much bigger challenge was handling expectations of relatives and family friends, who got a bit grumpy when told no, they couldn't come and randomly hype up LO then disappear for another twelve months Sure they'll get over it though!

[Italiangreyhound]

Goodness, I was lucky, my family just accepted things how we agreed. I must be an uncompromising old thing!

[Whatutalkinboutwillis]

Ours went well too. 2nd Christmas with ds. Last Christmas he had only been home 8 weeks and it was so difficult but this year was much more relaxed and he is at an age where he gets Christmas now. Still funny buying 2 'son' Christmas cards though!

[Kewcumber]

DS had a great Christmas (mostly) - we were away on holiday and he did have a few issues in the kids club initially but we were lucky to have a couple of very sensible workers in the kids club who after discussion with me handled him just right so it ended up being "the best holiday EVER".

Me not so much, tonsillitis started Xmas Eve, came home to broken boiler (still broken so no heating) and my grandmother died yesterday.

Seems odd to say despite all that it was quite nice and I was glad we were away and DS could be entertained by others whilst I mostly slept!

[LastingLight]

Oh dear Kew... sorry to hear you were ill (are you feeling better now?) and about the boiler. But I'm glad DS had the best holiday ever!

DD was with the bio grandparents so we had a grownups Christmas.

[ChippingInLovesChristmasLights]

Kew. Sorry to hear you've been ill, your boiler is broken and especially that your Grandmother has died :(. How are you feeling now? How's your Mum coping? Was your grandmother ill? Re your boiler, is it reading anything on the pressure gauge? I came home to a small flood and the heating not working. Heating engineer ignoring all phone calls so I looked it up online and found it had lost pressure. I did the repressurising myself, though it will need looking at (as to why it happened) in the New Year. At least though, for now, we have heating. I'm glad DS had 'The Best Holiday Ever'


Italian. I'm glad you all had a lovely Christmas

Big hugs to all of you who struggled, it's not easy x

[Italiangreyhound]

Kew sorry to hear about your grandmother and the illness and boiler.

Hope all will be well.

[mineallmine]

Hi all. Isn't Christmas with children just lovely? Dd asked for a doll from Santa and had to be encouraged to ask for a surprise too. She was thrilled on Christmas morning with her presents. The loveliest part of Christmas was my 14 year old ds's reaction to it all. Santa went for him the year did came but this year, with dd's 'getting' Santa for the first time, ds has been just gorgeous. He woke the whole house up at 6am to see has Santa been yet and was thrilled with his presents even though he knew what was coming.

Sorry Buster that Christmas was difficult for your ds. We'll never know all that goes through the heads of our children.

Kew, so sorry to hear of your grandmother's death. Was it expected? How has your ds reacted to it?

[dibly]

Sorry to hear of your grandfather Kew. X

Buster if it's any consolation, ad has made huge progress the last few months, but has also reverted back to rejecting me over Christmas. I think they just get out of routine and overstimulated at this time of year and so we bare the brunt of it. I don't think DH is always as helpful as he could be either. I'm quite wary that this will be the pattern now in times of stress and so we need to deal with it as a family.

Glad everyone else is generally having a good christmas, and hope we all have a great new year. X

[Lillyludge]

Sorry for your loss Kew xxx

Christmas here was busy (for me!). Family came to visit and met AC (placed in September) for the first time. I found it hard at times to cope, but it was lovely to see everyone.

AC (nearly 2) was brilliant! Really settled, sociable, and happy despite having a horrid cold. However BC (nearly 7) really struggled with sharing the attention from the family with his new sibling

[Kewcumber]

Dibly my grandmother appears to have had a very late in life gender reassignment!!!

Grandma had only been ill with a cough for a couple of days (and no worse than shes been in the past when ill), my cousin who lives with her, took her a cup of tea in the morning and she died shortly after.

If we do have to die then she did it in a way I think we'd all wish for - aged 98, in bed in her own home, looked after by family after a nice cup of tea. My father (whose mother it was) seems OK at the moment. He says its best that she's with her husband and other son now - she had a child who died of whooping cough and never missed an easter of going up to his grave until she became bed ridden in the past few years. It's the only comment that actually made me cry!

DS has been surprisingly OK about it - given his separation issues. We have talked about it quite a bit and he is a bit surprised that he doesn;t feel like crying. I have explained that she wasn't a big part of his life day to day so thats quite understandable and also that whilst its sad, someone dying peacefully in their bed at 98 isn't a tragedy but the end of a life well lived.

Luckily we made the effort (she lives in west wales) to go down and see her for a few days for October half term which I am now heartily glad I did as I feel that otherwise I would have felt bad as we hadn't been down in a while. DS enjoyed playing his Baritone to her morning and evening - the perfect combination - an almost deaf 98 year old and a 9 year old trainee brass player.

Sorry to hijack Buster

[Lilka]

I'm sorry Kew xxx
But pleased to hear she was in her own bed with her family

We had a lovely christmas eve with DD1 and family, very busy but no one had 'expectations' iyswim and it took my mind off everything.

Christmas day was awful. Morning was fine, DS was happy, loved his presents and took it upon himself to make me cups of tea! But we had arranged to go to my mams for the afternoon and dinner and meet DD2 there. I went out to meet her and walk her the rest of the way to the house, and everything went downhill from there. She doesn't 'do' christmas - too stressful and it gets taken out on me. To cut the whole awful afternoon short, it ended with her slapping me round the face hard and mam telling her to leave. That basically ruined DS christmas as well

We met up with DD1 and kids again a few days ago though, it was what I needed.

[dibly]

I'm so sorry, a touch distracted!

[mineallmine]

O Lilka, you poor thing, it sounds awful. And your poor dd2, she's her own worst enemy. I'm glad you met up with dd1 and the grandchildren again, for your sake and your ds's. It must be very hard on him when things kick off with dd2.

[LastingLight]

So sorry for your loss Kew... but I agree, that's the way I would want to go too.

[excitedmtb]

Christmas....I think I am starting to understand the need for any attention....positive OR negative.
Also had family members who couldn't understand why we would want to have such a special time in our own home and weren't willing to take DD out late and on multiple occasions.
We've had an emotional last couple of days so think we were all ready for the return of school and a return to some sort of structure and normality.

Having said all that....we DID have a lovely time too and DD's face on Christmas morning means that we will get through any tough stuff we need to.

Sorry for your loss kew

lilka sorry things were so tough for you on Christmas day