CHRISTMAS 2018/NEW YEARS Chillout Lounge

[kanga_brumby]

Hey Everybody! Christmas is the time of year to enjoy & share with family & friends. Some people will spend this time alone & isolated too!
This is a safe place where people can post and say hello, chat or send wishes to others and have a 'Virtual Christmas/New Years'!
Whether you have plans for Christmas/New Years or having a quiet one you can kick back and just enjoy company of others. Its been a long year. Even if you have never posted on Beyond Blue before you are very welcome to come in and sit around our 'Virtual Christmas Tree' and chat 🙂
You asked for this Paul here it is for all.
Santa (AKA Kanga Peter) Ho Ho! 🙂

[Doolhof]

Hi Blue two,

Welcome to the community here on this amazing forum. Would you like to share more of your Christmas blues? You are more than welcome to do so right here on this thread. Not everyone enjoys Christmas, we all understand that.

If you'd like to share a little more, we may be able to help make this festive season more user friendly for you, create options and ideas to cope, offer support and understanding.

Hey, if you go back a few pages you will see a rant I shared regarding my family. It helped me to let go of a lot of negative stuff and to concentrate on how I would like to spend Christmas this year.

So to you and all who are feeling poorly about Christmas, this is the place to share, along with those who enjoy Christmas. We can all support and care for each other.

Cheers Everyone from Dools

[blondguy]

Hi MrsDools and everybody 🙂

Hey Blue two. I just wanted to say hello and thanks so much for being a part of the forums

Many of us (as Sally o CMF Dools Geoff and many others) also find this time of year challenging too

Thanks everybody for the support you have given me on this thread as Christmas is difficult for me too

Paul

[Sally_o]

For Christmas there will be my husband and me. There will be presents under the tree. We have both bought our own presents and given them to each other to wrap and give back. It sounds mad. But no one will be disappointed! We have ordered a ham from the pig farm and will have a drive through the hills on Christmas Eve to pick it up. We will have salads and pavlova and I will make mince pies. There will be awkward phone calls from the sons and happier ones from my sisters. I am going to savour simplicity.

[blondguy]

Hey SallyO

Good on you for buying your ham direct from a farm....thats a great idea

SallyO mentioned " I am going to savour simplicity" Reducing the high expectations of the season in just a few words....Great stuff 🙂

Paul

[Birdy77]

Hello lovely people 🌻

Sorry this is a downer coming up:

My family of origin all pretty much don't talk to each other anymore, and it feels like a very sad and depressing time of year to me. It took me all of 10 minutes to purchase gifts for those still in contact and it made my heart ache for those christmases past where i would spend December making homemade bon bons for everybody and making it special ... and all the people that i miss, this time of year really amplifies the absences ...

I would dearly like to stay home with my partner and hang out in the backyard with the chooks ...

But we "have" to drive 3 + hours to spend the day with my partner's dysfunctional family and hear their constant bickering, we take a stack of food I've cooked at home because we're vegan but the mother gets angry and insulted because we wont to eat the meat she prepares ... if anyone unfamiliar drops by, i will be introduced as my partner's "friend" even though we have our home together for the last 6 years ... (my partner and i are both female) ... and i will want to just drink the day away to get through it, but i can't because then i have to drive us 3 + hours home again, we could stay overnight but i would rather pluck out my own eyelashes ...

Joyous time!!

I apologise for the rant ... but thanks for letting me get it off my chest.

Thanks everyone for being such a caring community here.

Love and light to all ❤

🌻 birdy

[Sally_o]

Fabulous rant, Birdy!! Sounds horrendous. ‘This too shall pass’ is about all the wisdom I can bring to mind!

[blondguy]

Hey Birdy77!

Always a treat to read your posts. No apologies necessary 🙂

You are up for an 'interesting' day Birdy! This thread is for everyone whether they are in the backyard with the chooks or having a day that they are dreading.....ugh!

Great to have you here with us now before your 3 hour drive to your partners family!

Paul

[Quercus]

Hello everyone,

Reading birdy77's post reminded me of my new year's resolution (is it too early to start now?).

My little family (husband and two ferals) are my priority. The people who love me and treat me well are my priority. So their expectations are the ones that matter.

I spend far too long meeting the needs and expectations of people who give nothing and don't care for me. Why?

So that's my new goal. Stop caring. People can have all the expectations that they want... It doesn't give them the right to my time and effort. It's ok to make people angry sometimes.

On another note last night I finally put up our tree. The house is painted and all clean. My kids woke up and I heard "oooooh look!" "it's so pretty". Such a simple thing but felt so nice.

[Doolhof]

Hi Birdy,

Your rant made me laugh as I remembered Christmases past. Returning home for a "family" Christmas, me full of prescription medication, one sibling drunk, another totally away with the fairies so we could all cope with playing Happy Families.

I'd like to suggest you celebrate with the chooks on Boxing Day. I used to make my chooks frozen corn ice blocks, they loved them on a hot day.

We can never "Make" anyone else like us or "accept" us, we can do that for ourselves though.

Load up the car with favourite tunes and have a mini road trip of fun along the way.

Cheers from Dools

[Birdy77]

Thanks Sally 😊 I'm sure it's nothing compared to what others will have to endure, but I'm still dreading it.

Paul, thanks as always for your encouragement, I'd prefer to spend xmas day on thie forums truth be told!

Nat, so true, and wise. I agree with you. But ... that argument of "but it's only one day of the year ... it's for faaaammmmiiily" ... that thing of just having to suck it up because the rest of the year we don't have to put up with it. I ❤ your new years resolution, but i have this argument coming from my partner's family ... 🤔

Dools, yes thank you i will load up the car with roadtrip tunes and look forward to boxing day (recovery day) with the chooks. They will have enjoyed their icecorn blocks the day before.

Urgh, christmas ... 😆

🌻 birdy xo