Coping with Grief During the Holidays: Christmas Past and Present

Chocolate Chip cookies for Santa that I baked on Christmas Eve.

Coping with grief during the holidays is definitely one of the most challenging parts of loss. It hits you hard, both a mix of the memories you made and the realization of the memories you will never make with your loved one. Christmas has always been one of the happiest memories from my childhood.....but so much has changed in these last few years with the loss of my mom and my sister, and my father moving away, that I've had to rediscover and redefine what Christmas should look like.

Last year, my first year without my sister, I just really didn't care. I didn't know how I could care. I had dreamed of our first Christmas in this new house; this house I waited my entire adult life to build, that I couldn't wait to joyfully decorate, to pick out my first 10 foot plus tree for, to play the present opening game my family played for the past 20 years every Christmas morning - this house, that I thought would be the scene for so many happy memories between my sister and I after losing our mother just a year and a half earlier. Now, here it was, December 2023, and all I felt was the overwhelming sadness of her loss, of the emptiness, the silence, and the void she left behind in my life and in my heart. So, I did the basics, tried my best to smile, and just focused on making it through. This year, around mid-June, I found myself longing for the special joy and warmth that Christmas brings. I wondered why that might be and settled on the thought that maybe that kind of lighthearted, gentle comfort was what my heart needed.

When the holiday season approached, I met it with an excitement and passion I hadn't felt in years. I picked a special day to shop for the Christmas decor I had put off the year before; the decor that in early March of 2022, I had longed to indulge myself with. I rethemed my tree, saving the ornaments from years prior to help fulfil another dream I'd always had: a Christmas tree in my bedroom. I found a beautiful flocked artificial tree and adorned it with varying shades of pink - both my and my sister's favorite color.

I then started reflecting on how to spend Christmas. My father lives up north these days, I'm not close to any extended family, and holidays just aren't my brother's thing. We invited my husband's mother and sister to stay over on Christmas Eve. My sister in law is a whimsical person, a dreamer at heart, like me. Earlier in the month, we had taken her with us to Disney World; it was her first adult trip, with only one visit to the park in her early childhood. On our last day there, she waited in line for a picture with Santa. As she sat with him, he asked her what her Christmas wish was. Her response: to have a magical Christmas. It was a wish I set out to fulfil.

I bought new stockings for her and her mother and hung them on our mantle. I put a 4 foot tree in her guest room and decorated it with hot and light pink ornaments. I shopped for special gifts so they'd each have multiple things to open on Christmas Day, and I tried to incorporate as much fun and holiday cheer into the plans that I could.

On Christmas Eve, I cooked all afternoon, making gumbo, chocolate chip cookies, and a brie wrapped in puff pastry and pepper jelly. We took pictures, then watched Christmas with the Kranks until, finally, everyone was ready for bed. "Santa" came and put out all the presents, even leaving a special letter on the tree for my sister in law, along with a Nice List certificate.

Christmas morning came, and after breakfast and coffee, it was time to open presents. The stockings I gave them were semi-anticipated....but the gifts under the tree from Santa with their names on it were truly an unexpected, magical surprise. I watched as they delighted upon opening each gift, gushing with excitement, and in those moments, my heart felt still and happy. When it was all over with and things wound down, my sister in law told me she'd never gotten so many presents in all her life (it really wasn't that many, lol), and that it was the best and most magical Christmas she's ever had. My mother in law shared that sentiment, and it brought me great joy. Once they left that afternoon, I did find myself feeling the heaviness.....like a darkness washing over me, and the sudden reality of how strange and foreign Christmas feels to me now after all that's changed hit me hard. I know that underneath all the moments of joy, the moments I'm able to steal away from the pain, there will always be the emptiness, the heaviness of loss. I know that those moments are unavoidable. I try not to become lost to them for too long, but holidays are always the hardest, and the most uncomfortable, reminders of how much is missing. Still....I'm happy I was able to enjoy this holiday, and while I do have fears about next year's Christmas season, I know there's a whole year before I have to build myself up to face it again.