Planning the Best Christmas for All of the Family

I know many 26 year olds won’t wake up at their parents’ house on Christmas Day. This will be the first time James hasn’t though. My ‘mum guilt’ is off the scale.

Unbelievably, it’s that time of year again. I’m sure the older you get the quicker the time passes by. This time last year we were planning our first Christmas since James had moved into his own flat. I picked him up from his day service on Christmas Eve and he stayed with us until the day after Boxing Day. It mostly went well and it was lovely to have him home with us for a few days. I was worried as to how he would be when it was time for him to go home as it was the longest he had stayed with us since his move. 

However, James was perfectly fine when we left him at his home. He was very tired from a busy few days and I think he was ready to settle back into his normal routine. 

Best Laid Plans

Last year I wrote about how, as a family, we were looking forward to spending time together following the covid pandemic and having had to spend the previous Christmas apart. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite go according to plan as my sister Joan’s partner tested positive for covid Christmas morning and so they couldn’t be with us. We are hoping for better luck this year.

I’ve given a great deal of thought to Christmas this year. In the back of my mind I had expected to have James here again from Christmas Eve until the day after Boxing Day. But, when James comes to stay with us – as he does every few weeks – I have to admit to being absolutely shattered. I guess I’ve got out of the habit of being up to him at night and being up so early in the mornings. 

At his home James is attached to a feeding pump overnight for 5 hours. He needs to consume a certain amount of calories each day and needs this overnight feed to supplement his diet as he doesn’t eat enough to maintain his weight otherwise. James also sleeps in a large style cot bed and as he cannot get out of this himself he is totally safe to sleep connected to his pump. I might also add he has waking night staff observing him all night too.

At my house James now sleeps in an ordinary divan bed with a bed guard to stop him falling out. He cannot be on his feeding pump as this would not be safe. Therefore, to get James’ daily calorie intake in we have to bolus feed him a couple of times during the evening. These feeds also need to be a few hours apart so what this means is that he tends to have his last bolus feed around 11.30pm then I wash the tubes etc and get to bed around midnight. We have a baby monitor in our room to listen out for him during the night. He tends to sleep quite well but stirs occasionally, and I don’t sleep soundly as I’m listening for him. Then at 6am he is up and fully awake and therefore so is everyone in the house. Hence, I get tired!

Rethinking Things!

Now if I’m being totally honest, if James is going to be staying for three nights I am going to be totally shattered, starting with being tired on Christmas Day. Thinking this through though I didn’t want to shorten James’ stay by taking him home on Boxing Day as we have family here then. The only alternative is to not have him sleep on Christmas Eve. I talked this through with a few people and James’ dad and we reluctantly came to the conclusion that perhaps we could pick James up on Christmas morning instead.

That really won’t seem like a big deal to some people. But to me it is. I know he is 26 years old. I know many 26 year olds won’t wake up at their parents’ house on Christmas Day. James always has though, and so this will be the first time he hasn’t. Realistically when James wakes up Christmas morning it won’t seem any different to him to any other day. He doesn’t really understand what it’s all about. However, my ‘mum guilt’ is off the scale. I feel so bad about planning to do it this way.  

I spoke to the management at James’ home because from a practical point of view I thought staffing may be an issue. James’ night staff leave at 8am and if we were intending to pick James up at 10am this might be problematical for them. The response I got was wholly supportive. They reasoned that it was better for us to be well rested and look forward to spending quality time with James once he was here with us, and not to start the Christmas period feeling shattered. They said to ‘think of it the same as any other young man coming home to spend Christmas with his family’ and he will still be staying with us for 2 nights and the best part of three days. In my heart of hearts I know their logic is right.

So, this is what we are going to do this year. I’m still having a bit of a wobble about it but I’m going to go with it and try and embrace the change. Darryl is actually going to go and pick James up Christmas morning. I will be busy in the kitchen and to be honest, James would find it stressful if he was here as he wouldn’t have much of my attention that morning anyway. I now have some time on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day morning to do all the food prep etc and am really looking forward to James’ arrival. James’ grandparents and my sister and her partner will also be with us assuming we can all steer clear of covid and the other bugs that are currently circulating.