Grief During the Holidays

Grief can dampen the holiday spirit. It's OK to let yourself mourn year-round.

If you’re grieving the loss of a loved one or something that was important to you, the holidays might be especially hard on your emotionally. With all the emphasis on being together with family this time of year, the absence of your loved one might feel especially painful. This post discusses how to handle grief during the holidays.

First holidays without your loved one

If this is your first holiday season without your beloved, you might feel especially raw. Many of my clients report that the first few years are the roughest, but if you still feel upset and sad during the holidays, that's not uncommon either. The person’s absence might be a stark reminder that they cannot be here in physical form, and you might be adjusting to that mentally and physically.

When we have someone important in our lives, we make a mental map of our world with that person in it, explains Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor. The difficulty comes from navigating the world with an outdated mental map. We might still expect to get a call, text, or email from the person, or see them in a crowd even though we know intellectually that they’re deceased.

You may not want to feel grief during the holidays...

Some people handle this by trying to escape into work, alcohol or drugs, scrolling on their phones, or any number of avoidance strategies. While that might feel good or relieving in the short run, the pain is still there to be resolved, and eventually, it will need to be processed emotionally and mentally.

Instead, you might want to create a new tradition that honors the person’s presence in your life while still working on accepting that they’re no longer here. Lighting a special candle for the person during a holiday celebration, putting their picture up, or doing some other symbolic gesture to commemorate them might feel satisfying, despite their absence. Saying a few words with your surviving family or friends nearby and hearing about how the person impacted whoever else wants to share is another way to honor the deceased.

What to do when others expect you to be over the loss already

Not everyone understands grief and loss; sometimes people impose their unrealistic or highly personalized style of grieving onto you. They don’t mean to be hurtful, but it can still sting when you receive comments like, “are you still moping around about that?” or “I thought you’d be done grieving by now. After all, it’s been (fill in the blank of how long it’s taken).” It can be tempting to tell the person off for being so insensitive, but another way to view their actions is that they’re uncomfortable with grief, and they don’t want to see you suffer. While understandable, it can be frustrating, annoying, and insulting if you’re still actively mourning the loss.

A response that is respectful yet assertive might be useful here. You might say, “It sounds like you believe I should move on from my loss and not feel anything, but that’s not how grief works. I can’t turn it off or on like a light switch. I appreciate your concern, but I feel it’s important to express myself about the loss for however long I need to. If that makes you uncomfortable, I understand. But please don’t tell me how to mourn this loss.”

What are your expectations of your grief during the holidays?

It's important not to impose arbitrary timelines on yourself about mourning either, especially during the already-stressful holiday season. You might have unrealistic expectations of being able to keep up the usual hustle-bustle of gift shopping, wrapping, entertaining, AND grieving the loss. The fact is that your body and mind need time to adjust to the loss. Give yourself that time and space. Don’t treat yourself like a robot. It takes time to adjust to the new reality that you have lost someone or something important to you.

Focus on what's most important, and the spirit of the holiday, instead of doing everything perfectly.

If you start to criticize yourself or push yourself to do too much, remind yourself that grief takes time, and it’s not always linear. You might feel good for a few days or weeks, and then be reminded or confronted with the loss and feel horrible again. You might have fatigue and brain fog, and it might be hard to get everything on your to do list done. Make space and time for yourself to mourn. There’s no prize for doing everything “right” or pushing through. This is a healing time, regardless of whatever else is happening.

You might communicate with other loved ones about what you’re capable of, to avoid disappointment or misunderstandings. It might be helpful to adjust your plans to include some solitude or rest, and to limit gift giving to the people who are most likely to notice it (i.e., children and teens). The bottom line: find ways to simplify your plans for the holidays, to make the moments count, and to be compassionate and patient with yourself (even if others are not as gracious). You owe it to yourself to honor your grief. If you want or need some support for grief during the holiday season (or anytime), grief counseling and therapy can be a good choice. Please don’t hesitate to call me or click the button below.

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