The holiday season often arrives wrapped in twinkling lights and cheerful songs, promising warmth, togetherness, and joy. For those grieving a loss, this time of year can feel painfully out of tune with their inner world, and it helps to find meaningful ways to connect as a family and with others during this time.
Family traditions can serve as anchors for those navigating grief during the holidays. In keeping certain traditions or creating new ones that honor both past and present, we allow space for grief and gratitude to coexist.
Recently, we asked adults currently attending The WARM Place to share what they plan to keep the same, what they plan to do differently, and what has helped them get through the holidays up to now. Below you will find some of their responses.
What we plan to keep the same:
- Make loved one’s favorite dish/meal/recipes
- Hang up lights
- Eat/celebrate/remember to be grateful
- Visit family
- Speak loved one’s name
- Drinking hot chocolate and driving around looking at lights
- Enjoy a Family dinner
- Decorate the house/tree for Christmas
- Placing wreath on loved one’s grave
- Wear matching pajamas
- Keep their stocking out
- Celebrating Hanukkah
- Visit their favorite restaurant to eat a meal in their honor
- Attending church
- Watch loved one’s favorite shows
- Go to movie theater on Christmas Day to watch a movie
What we plan to do differently:
- Christmas at home
- Short remembrance
- Act of kindness in memory of loved one
- Check in on one another and be honest
- Come up with a safe word when feeling overwhelmed
- Visiting loved ones at cemetery
- Taking more pictures and making more memories
- Light candles for loved ones and sing a song
- Watch trains pass by, drink coffee, and play video games.
- Doing what feels right and giving ourselves grace for anything that doesn’t, knowing things can change.
- Speak their name and talk more openly
- Setting up a separate tree just for loved one and asking family members to bring an ornament that reminds them of loved one to fill their stocking.
- Wearing custom pajamas
- Hanging their stocking
- Setting boundaries and not committing to something that feels overwhelming
- Going to see Christmas lights and bringing bears along that have loved one’s name on them to feel they are with us.
What has helped me get through holidays up to now:
- Faith/religion
- Our Church friends
- Family – checking in, visiting, relying on them for support
- Children – reason to keep moving forward and make new memories
- Remembering memories/happy times
- Remembering there is a purpose
- Giving ourselves space and allowing time to rest
- The WARM Place
- Reminding self how much the holidays meant to loved one
- Watch videos and look at pictures
- Taking one second, one moment, at a time
- Writing loved one a letter
- The power of memory
- Therapy/counselor
If this season feels different for you, know that you’re not alone. Grief is a part of our story of remembrance and love. May we hold space for both sorrow and celebration, and for one another, as we navigate what it means to keep traditions alive, while honoring the ones we miss.
If this is an activity you would like to do at home, click here for the handout with the questions.
