re: Christmas without parents...

Wiseguy,
I've no answers. You instinctively know that your Mom won't pass a minimental test.
The two situations I know where a mind got stuck in the past were both tragic. One, the very kind lady woke up every morning in a panic because she had forgot to study for a particular test in high school. And that was pretty much all she remembered. The other was after Katrina and a friends home lost 98 of 100 pine trees onto their house. Her mother had your Mom's level of remembering and they were staying at a family home up north, and several times a day her Mom had forgotten the hurricane and demanded going back to her lovely house. which wasn't.

All you can do is hold on as best you can. I have written plays when surrounded by impossible situations; just sit down and peck out a play that's ridiculous, don't share the password to it, but type to get that day out of your system.

I will tell you that you will do the best you can each day.No two days will be the same, some days will be a bit better, some day you'll look down and wonder what internal organ you pet chose not to eat and to leave in the middle of the kitchen floor. (Mine generally left a green organ of some sort). That went in my play and after I'd typed it I could smile a bit about it.

You're doing a good job. Because life has a wicked sense of what life is.