The holidays have a way of arriving whether or not your heart is ready for them. Lights go up, invitations roll in, stores start playing music you didn't ask for-and meanwhile, your life might feel like it's standing painfully still, while the rest of the world moves on as if nothing has happened. If you're heading into the holiday season after a loss, you're navigating two emotional landscapes at once: the world's insistence on cheer, and personally feeling the numbness of grief.
Grief impacts your body, your emotions, your entire life. And because grief changes you as you adjust and heal, it also changes the holidays: you are not the same and the holidays won't be, either. I've found over the years, working with hundreds of families coping with loss, that people tend to do one of two things: they either choose to keep holiday traditions and routines the same while remembering their loved ones, or they do it all differently. However, I also noticed that a lot of people feel some degree of guilt for doing things differently. I tell them:
It is okay to do things differently this year - because things are different - and next year you can decide to go back to regular traditions.
Here is a guide to help you assess your emotional bandwidth, honor your limits, and create a holiday season that matches the truth of where you are-not the pressure of where you think you "should" be.
1. Grief Doesn't Take a Holiday
The holidays highlight every empty chair, every tradition someone used to lead, every "remember when." Grief can feel sharper this time of year, even if you thought you had found your footing. Grief also naturally arrives in waves-unexpected, often inconvenient, and 100% normal.
Coping with the grief during the holidays is about moving through the experience. Good coping doesn't require perfection, performance, or holiday spirit you don't actually feel. It requires honesty about where you're at and not overextending yourself.
2. You Have Permission to Do Less (or More… or Something Else Entirely)
For many people, the first holiday after a loss feels like a crossroads. Do you keep the same traditions? Do you skip them? Do you create something new?
As you have probably already heard, there is no right answer.
Traditions aren't sacred if they cost you your emotional well-being. Decorations aren't proof of coping well. Showing up doesn't mean having to show up everywhere, this year.
If baking the cookies your loved one used to love brings you comfort-do it. If looking at those same recipes makes your chest ache-skip them.
You're allowed to make choices based on what feels supportive and do-able, not what feels expected.
3. Assessing Your Emotional Bandwidth
Your job this holiday season isn't to manage anyone else's disappointment or expectations. Grief already demands so much. You don't owe the world holiday energy you don't have. Your emotional bandwidth is simply your current capacity-how much mental, emotional, and physical energy you actually have available. When you're grieving, that bandwidth is often shorter and more variable day-to-day than you'd expect.
As you consider holiday plans, ask yourself:
- What feels doable this year?
- What feels heavy or overwhelming?
- Where do I feel pressured, and whose voice is behind that pressure? Is it mine? Can I let it go for just this year?
- What am I saying yes to that I might need to decline this year?
Assess your energy, or "bandwidth" as you decide how to do things this year. Here is a simple bandwidth scale you can use:
Low Bandwidth
You're tired, emotionally foggy, easily overwhelmed, or struggling to maintain the basics. Holidays may need to be slower, smaller, quieter. This might look like:
- A simple meal instead of a full gathering
- Skipping travel
- Declining invitations for gatherings that take more from you than they give
- Spending the day in nature or solitude
Medium Bandwidth
You can participate in some things, but you need control over pacing and you need exits. This might look like:
- Attending one gathering instead of several
- Setting time limits-"I'll stay for an hour" or "I'll come for dessert"
- Choosing events with people who understand your grief
- Keeping traditions but modifying them
High Bandwidth
You feel moments of stability or energy. You may want connection, laughter, or tradition, but you still need flexibility. This might look like:
- Hosting something small
- Planning a meaningful ritual or memorial
- Leaning into traditions that comfort you
- Choosing to celebrate because it feels good, not because you "should"
Your bandwidth can change by the day. Sometimes by the hour. Try to make room for this reality and operate within your bandwidth as best you can. This will help you avoid unnecessary burnout.
4. Adjusting Traditions Without Abandoning Love
Sometimes people worry that changing traditions means they're letting go of the person they lost. But the love you have for them isn't stored in rituals or routines-it's stored in you.
You can keep one tradition and release another. You can create a new ritual to honor them.You can choose to remember them privately, publicly, or not at all that day.
If you have children or other family members to consider as you plan the holidays, it can be productive to ask them (or consider for much younger children) what they most want to keep in terms of traditions. I've had families write lists of the things everyone most wants to do this year. Then they determine how they can achieve that list within their bandwidth.
People also consider new things, maybe just for this year.
Consider these ideas:
- Light a candle in their honor
- Make or purchase their favorite foods
- Share a story or favorite memory
- Play their favorite songs
- Donate gifts in their name that they would have enjoyed
Remember, the first year after a loss is what I call "the year of firsts." It's your first time doing the holidays without your loved one. It's okay to do things differently. You can add things back next year; adjusting this year isn't how it will look and feel forever.
5. Let Yourself Feel What You Feel, and Don't Be Afraid to Share It
You don't have to be cheerful. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to keep it together all day in order to be grieving well. In fact, tears at the holiday table don't "ruin" anything-they're part of the story of love. I tell people who feel they have to hold it together, or who try to make tears off-limits, that when everyone is holding it in at the dinner table, it really means everyone will cry alone in the shower, later.
Again, while there's no "correct way to grieve," I think it's good to grieve together and remember together some of the time. It can be helpful, connective, and supportive to share our feelings of grief with the people in our lives who knew our loved one, even if it does feel vulnerable.
Grief is not a single emotion. It's many emotions, all making their way through your system in waves. Give yourself permission to notice and feel a full range of emotions:
- Sadness
- Anger
- Numbness
- Gratitude
- Relief
- Happiness
- Loneliness
- Warmth
Being able to name and share your experience with others can be a valuable way of moving through grief this holiday season, and every day.
6. You Get to Create This Season Around What You Need Now
This holiday won't look like years past-and that's okay. As I said earlier, next year won't look like this one, either. Grief is a moving, natural process. Your holidays can move and shift right along with it.
This year, especially, consider for yourself:
- What would make this day gentler for me?
- What would honor my heart?
- What would help me feel connected-to myself, to my loved one, or to the present moment?
Maybe the answer is time spent in your community. Maybe it's quiet. Maybe it's tradition. Maybe it's simplicity. Maybe it's something entirely new.
Again, there is no "right" holiday after a loss-only an honest one. And honest holidays, even when they're numb or messy or quieter than the world expects, are the ones that can help you heal. I wish you continued adjustment, support, and healing through your grief this holiday season.