My family Christmas
My family had its Christmas celebration today. Almost all of it was fun. Everyone seemed satisfied with their presents from everyone else. I gave all the adults in the family framed pictures that Ian or I had taken - I think almost everyone liked theirs. Some were bigger hits than others, of course :) One of my nephews wanted to play Scrabble, so a bunch of us (including the other nephew) had a game of Scrabble. It would have been better if everyone could have played - there were 11 of us, which makes it difficult even if people are teamed up. I wasn't going to say no to my nephews, though :) At one point, my nephew said that "it would be bad if [he] got no vowels". I said something like "oh yes, it's bad when you get no values" (I'm a bit dyslexic - I substitute words like that all the time). Everyone laughed and laughed :)
No Christmas in my family would be complete, of course, without crying and some conflict :) This year, it was me who ran away crying. We were going to play this other game, and there was part of it that I couldn't do because my memory is much worse than it used to be. My sister took a "this way or no way" approach at the time and I ended up bawling from a combination of being more emotional than usual and having problems dealing with the fact that I can't do stuff I could do before. I'm glad I'm not working right now - I can only imagine how many times I'd end up crying in the bathroom because I can't do stuff. How professional is that? :(
Later on, my sister ended up quite angry and there was a big argument. I don't like conflict and so it was very uncomfortable. Things are better now, though. One good thing that came out of that discussion was that we all had a chance to say what we were feeling - both good and bad. It cleared the air a lot, and set the precedent for speaking about things early. That's a good thing, because everyone in my family has a tendency to bottle things up and then explode in a million pieces of anger - it would be better if we didn't do that.
In some ways this Christmas was different than previous Christmases, as least for me. I'm very aware that the number of Christmases I have is limited, and that's so hard. I treasured this celebration all the more for that. I love my family so very much, and I'm going to miss them a lot when I go back home. I haven't felt this way since I moved to Ontario in 1996. I'm really, really glad that I was able to come to Edmonton to see everyone. It's been a pretty hard year for many people in my family, and it's been good to just be able to see and hug them. It's not like I can make anything better for them of course (if I could make things better, I'd start with this darn cancer), but it makes me feel better to be with them.
No Christmas in my family would be complete, of course, without crying and some conflict :) This year, it was me who ran away crying. We were going to play this other game, and there was part of it that I couldn't do because my memory is much worse than it used to be. My sister took a "this way or no way" approach at the time and I ended up bawling from a combination of being more emotional than usual and having problems dealing with the fact that I can't do stuff I could do before. I'm glad I'm not working right now - I can only imagine how many times I'd end up crying in the bathroom because I can't do stuff. How professional is that? :(
Later on, my sister ended up quite angry and there was a big argument. I don't like conflict and so it was very uncomfortable. Things are better now, though. One good thing that came out of that discussion was that we all had a chance to say what we were feeling - both good and bad. It cleared the air a lot, and set the precedent for speaking about things early. That's a good thing, because everyone in my family has a tendency to bottle things up and then explode in a million pieces of anger - it would be better if we didn't do that.
In some ways this Christmas was different than previous Christmases, as least for me. I'm very aware that the number of Christmases I have is limited, and that's so hard. I treasured this celebration all the more for that. I love my family so very much, and I'm going to miss them a lot when I go back home. I haven't felt this way since I moved to Ontario in 1996. I'm really, really glad that I was able to come to Edmonton to see everyone. It's been a pretty hard year for many people in my family, and it's been good to just be able to see and hug them. It's not like I can make anything better for them of course (if I could make things better, I'd start with this darn cancer), but it makes me feel better to be with them.
posted by Chantelle at
10:20 PM
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