Dear LPG, 

I am a person that lives alone even though I have quite a large family which is spread all over the UK now,  and Christmas is a time when I am invited to my daughter’s home and all twenty members of my extended family are also invited. In fact, in recent years, it was the only time in the year that we all made the time to get together and sadly, my family then reflected too many families inasmuch as, all meeting up together was a once a year thing.

I know that Christmas is over for the best part of another year and most people are busy planning their holidays, but while I don’t think that many people really remember the real significance of that December holiday anymore, there is one good thing that comes out of it.

Now that family members move so far from each other it is, for better or for worse, a contributing factor in being a time to bring families together.  Although I think that perhaps it is up to us, the older family members to get the party started a little more often.

Hint-dropping has always worked for me although when you approach even the older youngsters, your children’s generation, you have to persist against the usual excuses.  ‘I will only get two days holiday Mum and I have promised to xxx on Sunday’.   Next they will tell you that they see their sisters and brothers, ‘so what’s the big deal’?  I find that my 50-something aged children cannot see further than the end of their noses, because they are so busy that they are not yet aware of how quickly their personal rat race will come to a very sudden end. 

A very big deal for me is that I get another picture to add to my diary showing the gradual evolution of each family member, so we now try to all get together at least three times a year.   Of course there are many other opportunities, but it is nice to have a regular photo even if there is not a birth death or marriage to commemorate.

It is a time when you can produce a set of updated family pictures.  They help you to remember all the family members as they were at regular times during your family’s life, and I always think that when I am in my eighties and nineties those pictures will help me to remember.

I found them so important when my Dad was losing his memory and in a care home.  They gave me something to talk about when I visited him, and triggered those family stories that help to preserve memory and conversation.  They are also something that, as a child I never had; a pictorial way of learning about my grandparents.  Pictures will help our grandchildren’s grandchildren to know a little more about their ancestors. 

If you can persuade them, every bank holiday is an important time to get all the family together so that the cousins (no matter how many times they are removed) actually know each other, as well as about each other.  Skype is very good but no substitute for keeping in touch physically and, despite the potential for noise and chaos when people from all stages of life get together, seeing the whole family in one place is a cause to remind us oldies of one legacy we are responsible for.

MM Catford