Just travelling back from Christmas with my extended family. It went well but was an enormous effort, DM is in her 80s and had a stroke last year but still wanted her 4 kids and grandkids there and everything bd done to the same high standards. To make the big family Christmas for 15 possible, I took a week off work on October and early December to declutter and tidy up her house, take her shopping and help prepare food for the freezer.
I went up 2 days before everyone arrived for the 6-day marathon of hosting and catering. One sibling flew back from abroad with family and my two other siblings live locally to my mum. It all went really well and was particularly delightful to have my new baby nephew with us. We were a large number for many meals. Many on healthy diets that require food made from scratch, no gluten, nitrates or emulsifiers etc.
One sibling flew in from abroad with partner and baby and stayed with my mum. One sister lives nearby and has two young children. She’s run ragged normally by her kids and working, but helped a lot. The other has grown up kids but is coping with an alcoholic husband and so can’t help,
it seems like everyone wants to return to a fantasy idea of how home was when they were little and mum was running around doing everything for them. My mum loves this as well and wants to look after everyone and have a hectic house with endless lovely meals being produced and, for example, several choices of puddings and coffee served and then tea with homemade cakes all in fine china, linen napkins etc. Also she’s amazing at baby meal prep so the baby had to have two options and pudding for four meals a day. None else can do this to her exacting standards, And baby food had to be ready before we ate. She’s quite remarkable, but the only issue is that she’s in her 80s and had a stroke a few months ago, so one side of her body is weak, the stress puts her in danger of having another stroke. before I left she said she thought this was the hardest thing she’s done in her life. I’m the helper making all this possible and it was such a mammoth operation, an incredible amount of work. I thought I could take the burden from her but even with me there doing so much she was up at 7 and working nonstop until midnight, finishing each day with to do lists and keeping notes on how recipes can be improved and quantities required.
A lot of people including my own children have no idea about the amount of work and were wrapping presents of Christmas Eve, not helping to serve drinks, wash up, lay the fire or make beds. They were too busy enjoying being spoilt. It’s so lovely for them all to have this experience.
The journey home takes a day for me by car, so just ruminating on the toll this takes on those bearing the burden. Whilst worrying about another meal for 14 that I need to do in 2 days for other family members who live near me. What would the value be of all this unpaid labour be ? It is amazing to be part of a big family that gets together. Is this the price competent women (matriarchs)pay for having a big family ? is this the effort required to be the kingpin of a big family? It seems to be a great privilege and burden at the same time.
I won’t do the same thing next year as it’s too much stress for my mum. So I need to rethink how we do Xmas.