This Christmas I will be.......

Hi everyone,
This time last year I asked you all to post some Xmas tips and we put some of these tips in an article and sent it to women newly diagnosed with a link to the online conversation
https://external2.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=d&c=96F7DB74A54F2F70&ID=87D90CE98EBF5B33&temp=False&tx=0
We would like to do the same this year. I was touched last year by some of the conversations around how Christmas now had a different meaning for some of you and the decisions you made about what is important now for you at Xmas time. I therefore thought we could do something around what you'll be doing this Xmas - what is now important to you, do you now do things differently, have certain traditions, activites become more important, are there things you ve decided not to do?
Would love to hear your thoughts.
This time last year I asked you all to post some Xmas tips and we put some of these tips in an article and sent it to women newly diagnosed with a link to the online conversation
https://external2.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=d&c=96F7DB74A54F2F70&ID=87D90CE98EBF5B33&temp=False&tx=0
We would like to do the same this year. I was touched last year by some of the conversations around how Christmas now had a different meaning for some of you and the decisions you made about what is important now for you at Xmas time. I therefore thought we could do something around what you'll be doing this Xmas - what is now important to you, do you now do things differently, have certain traditions, activites become more important, are there things you ve decided not to do?
Would love to hear your thoughts.
4
Comments
we go for a family picnic just our immediate family and spend some peaceful time at the dam.
I think this is the first year we won't have any family staying (unless I find out the day before!! LOL) All the nephews & nieces are now grown up & moved on from 'the beach house' ...
wendy55
Last Christmas I was on tenterhooks waiting on the genomic test to see if I had to have chemo or not. This year will be a lot less tense!
I'm very different from who I was a year ago, so I'm going into Christmas as a blank page. I don't know how it will be. More meaningful? Less meaningful? I feel a bit distant at these kind of events now, a little removed. So I'm going for no expectations and we'll see what happens.
Another atheist, I find the rampant greed associated with Christmas both baffling and irritating. What on earth is it all about? Filling trolleys with unwanted rubbish and then ratcheting up your stress levels is an odd way to celebrate a religious holiday. Oh well. I will be sitting in the river with the hound eating prawns again this year, weather and water levels permitting. Everyone I like enough to buy gifts for has enough stuff already so I don't have to do that either.
A true bonus for me is that my workplace does not put up decorations and there is no piped music so I'm spared the irritation of carols blaring. I don't understand why everyone wants to do that either. Yeah, I'm a Grinch. But I know I'm not alone. Grinches unite!
It's been an expensive year under treatment - even in a public hospital: parking and fuel the biggest tally. So I'll be limiting the cost of gifts for grandchildren. I'm an atheist too but I follow the cultural festive traditions for the sake of the children. With adults, my new guideline will be, "We don't need more 'stuff'. Let's just spend time together over a meal." And that recognition is more of a year gone by, rather than Christmas.
New Year's Eve is always much more important to me than Christmas. It was always the day when I wrote my journal and analysed the year gone by - my achievements, what I could have done better or differently, what I needed to focus on in the new year. It's important to me to always spend that evening with good friends and celebrate our friendship. This year more than ever, It will be vital to thank the friends who have sustained me this year. As for planning ahead, I'm still in too much of a fog to dare plan. I'm just taking one day at a time and hoping that 2019 will allow me to gradually regain some confidence and emotional equilibrium, as well as physical strength.
We haven't decided what we will do yet this year. Probably the same, although they plan on visiting on Christmas day this time. I'm not sure what food I'll make for the picnic lunch, they're getting older so I'd like to make it special. I'm torn between researching Christmas picnic dinners or putting up my very first tree tonight
I am a bit of a schmuck about Christmas - love pudding , mince pies and Christmas cake - all the goodies hard to find during the year as dried fruit is now quite expensive.
Sadly my kids are all past the early morning wake up and prefer money to gifts.Be a while before the grandkids start arriving and the fun begins again.
I guess I like best the “nice” that settles on people around this time of the year just wish some continued it into the coming year.But an not immune that some do it tough at this time of the year.
That said I’ll toddle on the blog to have a chat and see who is around Christmas Day.Hope to catch you then.X
😉
This year will be quite different, I'll be having chemo on Christmas Eve! I start 12 weeks of weekly chemo on 10 December so I'm trying to get organised now! I also got diagnosed as gluten intolerant 4 days before my cancer diagnosis so that will make Christmas trickier too! I am the maker of the trifle so I'm making a gluten free trifle and making all the bits ahead and passing the baton to my 16 year old daughter to put it all together on Christmas Eve!