#MicroblogMondays: Last Christmas?

(Posted on Tuesday!)

(Hey, it's been that kind of week...) 

We made it to my parents' house in western Canada his past weekend for the holidays. My sister & her partner picked us up, and before we headed out of the city to the small town where Mom & Dad live (about 45-60 minutes away), we got a tour of the house they bought & moved into this fall.  It's not huge, and the decor, plumbing, electrical and heating systems are absolute vintage late 1950s-70s -- i.e., it needs work! -- but it's bigger than the tiny house they were living in, and it has a nice layout, with three bedrooms upstairs and one down, three bathrooms (albeit just one a full bathroom with tub/shower) and a finished basement (classic 1960s wood panelling & bar). It's also in a great location, a short walk away from transit and a small older mall that includes a grocery store, hardware store, movie theatre, restaurants and an EXCELLENT and independent! mega-bookstore (one of the best in Canada). It's big enough for the two of them to comfortably host dh & me and our parents next year for Christmas -- which she is determined to do. 

"This has to be the last Christmas at Mom & Dad's," she confided to us as we headed out of the city. "They just can't handle all the fuss and all the cooking any more, especially for an extended period of time -- but as long as we're at their house, they are not going to give up control and take a backseat." 

(My parents have control issues. Case in point: before settling in on the couch for a pre-supper nap, my father got dinner into the oven -- and then gave me a long list of instructions on turning down the oven (when & to what temperature) and when to add the potatos for baking -- including how to start them off in the microwave, with strict instructions on how many to put in at one time and exactly when I should turn them over to ensure they cooked more evenly. HE INSISTED THAT I WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. Did I mention I will be 62 years old in less than a month's time??)  

Will they agree to relinquish control and have Christmas at my sister's house next year?  I don't know. I guess only time will tell...!  

When I was growing up, we spent some Christmases with my grandparents in my mother's hometown in Minnesota, and some wherever it was we were living at the time -- five different towns in two different provinces before I graduated high school -- but wherever we were, my maternal grandfather (often, but not always, accompanied by my grandmother) would always come to be with us. (We also spent one Christmas, 1976, with my uncle and his family in Minneapolis. That was after my great-uncle -- my grandmother's youngest brother, who lived with her and my grandfather all his life -- passed away suddenly at the far-too-young age of 59.  I guess the adults decided a change in scenery was in order that year.) 

I would have to check my photo albums to verify this, but I think the last Christmas we spent at my grandparents' house was in the late 1970s or early 1980s, when I was finishing high school/in university. After that, my grandparents always came to be with us, and in later years, when driving distances got to be harder for them, someone would drive down and pick them up (about 1.5 hours away) and then bring then back home again after the holidays were over. I don't remember how old they were when my grandfather stopped driving to my parents' house, but they were probably in their mid/late 70s. Our last Christmas with Grandpa was 1997 (when he was 85); we had one more Christmas with Grandma (1998) before she too was gone. 1998 was also our first Christmas without the little girl we had thought would be arriving that November. 

My parents are now 81 (almost 82) and 83.   

I think, in the back of my mind, I always hoped that when I had kids of my own, my parents & sister would come to spend Christmas with US, at least once in a while. I even bought some plastic Christmas-themed plates & glasses in anticipation of the day.  But the kids never materialized, and neither has my family at Christmastime -- or many other times, to be honest. My mom almost always used to come visit us at least once a year when she was working, during spring break (she worked in a school and retired in 2006 -- her last visit was in 2008), but my dad has only come three times in 37 years (most recently for Katie's funeral in August 1998)(!).  My sister and her partner have visited me exactly once, in November1989 -- and the prime attraction was not me but the Grey Cup football game they had tickets for, lol. I suspect things might have been different, had we had kids -- but we didn't, and so we've always been the ones to travel at this time of year.  

My parents moved to this house in 1984, when I was just finishing up graduate school, and I lived here with them for a year afterward, until I got married.  This will be the 39th Christmas we've all spent together in this house, with the single exception of 2020 (and you all know why...!). Change is hard, but we've done it before -- albeit not for quite a long time...!  My sister & I know it is coming, again, sooner or later... 

I don't know what the future holds, or where we'll all be next Christmas -- but I'm going to enjoy this one, here & now, while & how I can.  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.