How to survive christmas after bereavement

[CountryMummy1]

I am dreading Christmas as it will be the first one without my nan.

Two christmas' ago everything was wonderful. I had my DD after a very difficult time, my grandparents were fit as fleas and completely independent, my little sister just had her 5 years cancer remission and my parents were good too. We have always all spent Chrismas together, for all my 38 years and had super times.

Last Christmas was hell on earth. My grandad was told he had an advanced cancer and needed his leg amputated on Christmas Eve. Luckily my DD was too young to really understand what Christmas was and so it was a very depressing, subdued Christmas as we faced losing Grandad.

Grandad survived and has done very well. He is back up and walking/driving with his prosthetic leg. However, in March my nan went very yellow. She was rushed to hospital and told she had terminal pancreatic cancer. Just 3 weeks later she had a series of catastrophic strokes and was effectively brain dead. However, we had to watch her dying for a week as they withdrew food and fluids.

There is now a huge hole in our family. My grandad has changed so much. He relies on us completely and is very cantankerous and at times, absolutely infuriating. I am sure he is depressed which he would never admit to. He has no hobbies, no interests and won't socialise outside the family.

This year my DD is almost 3 and is so looking forward to Xmas. I have also been blessed with an 8 month old son. I'm so worried that we aren't going to be able to make it good for her as Christmas Day will be so inbearably sad as we sit around the table without my nanny.

Any advice please on how to get through that first difficult Christmas?

OP I'm sorry for your loss, but you have to make your own "new style" Christmas for your DCs.

By the time I was 24 I had lost all my grandparents, my aunt, my uncle and my brother. When it was just me and Mum (Dad left years before) we sort of cancelled Christmas, didn't make a big deal of it, just let it pass. Now I've got kids Christmas is special again. Different but special. Nothing lasts for ever, it's a sad fact of life.

Oh yes to whoever said about keeping old traditions too. My grandad loved Christmas. We still play all his old Christmas records, we still have a nativity set which he made for us, and (when at home or at my parents) we always open presents to the same background music.

Equally, I have spent Christmases with various partners, friends and family members. I now incorporate some of my DH's family traditions (and he, mine) and we have started some of our own.

Twice I have celebrated Christmas completely differently due to parent ill health - once when my dad needed life saving surgery we brought everything forward, another time after I had spent a long period supporting my mum in hospital, we ran away in need of respite to a close friend who welcomed us with open arms and plied us with alcohol, chocolates, and comedy films.

You just have to do what works for you and your family and not worry about what anyone else might do or think.

You just do. I lost my Grandad on boxing day the year before last. This year was the first Christmas. We were well dreading it but it was absolutely fine. We had a great day together as a damily , despite there being one if us missing. He wasn't at the last Christmas either as he was too ill (Despite him having heart failure he wasn't expected to go when he did but we all just knew it was his last Christmas).

Try not to get anxious about it. Just go with the flow xxx

Twenty eight years ago my mother suddenly lost her husband a couple of months before Christmas. She decided to take us out to a restaurant as no one could face being at home. It was a mistake. It was a clinical unemotional event - just going through the emotions to gain some sort or normality at Christmas. We'd have been better off spending a quiet time together, reflecting and remembering. Since then new traditions have been set and as Jollyphonics says, we have had a new way of celebrating. Life ( very gradually ) moves on.

Hi Country,
Really sorry to hear about your bereavement. I recall when my Dad died in the month of November, and Christmas was ghastly. I was ill with panic attacks and felt pathetic compared to the rest of my family who just seemed to be carrying on as normal. Now I realise that they coped better partly because they had children to focus on and to go home to. I think focussing on your little girl and baby will really help. I also think it's important not to feel you "should" be coping and being all grown-up. Bereavement affects everyone differently, and it sounds as though your nan's illness & death were hard to witness. You're probably still reeling from the shock, so don't try to be all "normal" and "strong". Just try to get through it. Stuff some comforts in your handbag, maybe get a new novel (you can stick your nose in the book when you start to feel overwhelmed). I remember doing cross-stitch, which is totally bizarre for me, but it allowed me to mentally "leave the room" when I was desperate to escape from other people (I felt v. unsociable). It's horrible when you realise that Christmas will never be the same again: I remember feeling an awful sense of loss. But then you start to invent the traditions anew, with yourself in a different role. The magic has gone perhaps, but it's no longer painful. Good luck x

I'm really sorry for your loss. I understand completely, my dear, wonderful Granda passed away just over three weeks ago. I'm dreading Christmas. My family have always been mad about Christmas, and it really won't be the same without Granda. We were extremely close, bar when on holidays I've seen him almost every day for all of my almost 30 years. It's also going to be tough on Nan, her first Christmas without her husband of 69 years.

We're putting steps in place to try and make it easier. My sisters and I are going to use the money that we'd usually spend on Christmas presents for him and get a big, amazing flower arrangement (he loved his colourful, full of flowers garden. For his funeral we all got colourful, wild looking, non funeral-y flowers, as he'd have much preferred that). We'll visit the cemetery on Christmas day, lay the flowers, and spend some time with him.

Then, my Aunts, uncles, cousins, Nan, parents, siblings, and all the partners and children are going to get together for a huge family dinner. We'll toast his memory, tell stories, and laugh a lot, as he was a very funny man. We're all going to wear Christmas jumpers, to try and inject some fun and silliness into the day. My sisters and I plan to write Christmas cards to him, to leave on his grave.

It's the best we can come up with, tbh. It's not perfect, and we'll be really sad, but we're Irish and tend to try and have a slightly positive attitude to death. During the two days that Granda was laid out at home before his funeral, we cried a lot, but we laughed even more. It's what he'd want.

I'm really sorry that you, and so many others on this thread, are facing Christmas missing a loved one. It's horrible.