I'm sorry to hear that. What will you be doing for the holidays? Or what would be your preference?

I am just trying to remain flexible. There are a few grieving processes at work. No one wants to be anywhere near me now but I wouldn't be shocked by some calls on Dec. 24th. Nor would it be shocking if these were immediately followed by a refusal to attend any event where I would be in attendance. There's a chunk of folks who are very angry that I stubbornly refuse to stop being autistic, bipolar, depressed, and physically ill.

Gotcha. Well, hopefully someone will get past that and at least call for some amount of time.

Hopefully my family hasn't tried to plan too much this year. I could go for some alone time this Christmas, not a solid week of family entrapment. I enjoy it, but over-scheduling activities is tiresome.

It's looking like I'll reunite with my old SYL show family just before Christmas. And my spare sister wants to celebrate all the digestive tract scams coming out meh instead of OH FUCK so there will be stuff. Just nothing at the childhood home. My brother's kid is six. The last four holidays have been spent with his dad's family because his grandfather's health. So unless he asks for me by name, kid is going to go see his cousins.

For the last decade or so my Xmas attendance has been at my stepfather's family's house, where there's plenty of food and wine to be had, but there are also his family who behind the smiles and courtesies silently judge and/or pity us (being my mother, three sisters and myself).
Since my mother divorced hm this year, we are no longer invited in their presence; fine with us, so we're just going to have family dinner at my mother's house.

I remember my first post-divorce holidays. People spent a lot of effort preparing me. Honestly, it was the first set I enjoyed in years. So much less driving. No people telling everyone I hated them because I wanted to do their house last.

Ok, one more that has been making me giggle since Christmas - my mother bought me a knitting book... I can only conclude that my sister and I were the world's easiest babies (or she drugged us) if she thought that with a 5 week old, I'd have spare time on my hands to learn a new hobby from scratch!

[JuZ]

Use the needles to chase them with when they're naughty, the wool to tie up all the openable spaces and the book can be a prop for their high chair or something?