Tis the season - but that means something different in my family apparently!

In my lifetime there have only been four deaths in my dad's really quite large family, and every single one of them has taken place at Christmas*. In fact we had a family funeral at Christmas last year and the year before, and this morning my grandmother died. We weren't close so I'm not too emotional about it. My grandmother was quite old and had been very sick the last few months, although obviously I'm sad for my father and his siblings. We now face into yet another Christmas funeral. I'm practically an expert on what days over Christmas you can be buried on at this rate.

Last year one of my cousin's wondered aloud "what did I ever do to santy?" and the whole thing did seem horribly cruel to that particular part of the family. My uncle (this particular cousin's father) has had his daughter, wife, father and now mother all die at Christmas time.

Anyway the funeral looks like being almost a week away. With all the snow it meant that not everyone could make it to the house. My parents, my brother and me don't live too far so we made it over. This ended up in the odd scenario of me being present for my grandmother's last rites. This is strange to me because of all the family members who have died belonging to me, I was least close to this one. In fact it was clear for many years that a certain animousity existed between us, although I'm not entirely sure why she felt like this. Anyway it felt ironic that I was there for this, but dad asked me to be in the room and so I was there. Anyway that's the colour of another Christmas.

On the plus side my nephew couldn't get to creche so he ended up spending the day with us as well. Small children are such a blessing at these times, even if he did end up being given far too many chocolate fingers by his great uncle**. It meant we spend a good portion of the day playing, which was certainly good for my dad.

*In contrast my mother's comparably smaller family have had more deaths and at different times of the year. My mother started out with 5 siblings and has 2 left. My dad started out with 6 siblings and all of them are still knocking about. My dad's family live long lives as well as dying at Christmas.

** Still not as bad as his other great uncle who gave him some guinness at another family funeral!