Summary: The holidays can be hard when we are navigating grief. Creating your own holiday rituals while coping with grief around the holidays is a big part of the healing journey.
The first holiday without someone you love is especially hard. The grief of losing someone never really goes away, it’s only managed. Let’s be honest: grief is never easy. The pressure of this time of year that is “supposed to be full of joy” often makes us feel like there’s no room for our hurt, no time for our sadness, or like our grief is something we can’t show openly.
What if instead of ignoring our holiday grief, we honored those big, complicated feelings? What if we made room for grief around our holiday tables? Here are a few small rituals that might help you navigate and honor your grief during the holiday season.
1) Plan a Memorial Meal
Many traditions this time of year use cooking and sharing a meal as a way to come together and celebrate. One way you can observe and give attention to your grief during the holidays is by sharing a memorial meal. Perhaps this memorial meal could take place leading up to an important holiday. By having this meal early, it may relieve some of the stress and anxiety that might be present leading up to those larger, more extragavant holiday meals. It’s a time where you can honor your late loved one and partake in something that brought them joy during their lifetime.
What was their favorite food? Or their favorite dessert? Cook it! Bake it! Let it be a potluck and have everyone bring a little something. Enjoy a little taste of something your loved one once loved. As you pass the dish around the table, those who have gathered can take turns sharing memories of that person. This small but mighty ritual gives everyone a moment to remember and honor the beloved person who has passed. Proposing a toast with your loved one’s favorite beverage is also a joyful way to honor your grief. Be it champagne or apple juice, a bubbly seltzer water or a cold can of Coca-Cola, sharing a toast and a specific memory of that person can be a great way not only to cope with, but also honor grief around the holidays.
2) Build an Altar of Remembrance
Altars of remembrance are an effective way to pay respect to the dead, while simultaneously coping with grief around the holidays. Altars give us a specific place in our home to observe our loved ones passing and remember the impact they had on our lives. This ritual exists in many ways throughout time and within different cultures.
For instance, in Mexican culture Dia De Los Muertos is celebrated at the beginning of November. This ritual invites family members to light candles, place pictures, flowers, and sugar skulls (among other things) around a family home altar to honor past ancestors, as well as loved ones who have died during the year. In the Jewish tradition, a yahrzeit candle is lit on the anniversary of a person’s death and traditionally burns for 24hrs in remembrance. A yahrzeit candle is not an altar, but it is a way to memorialize a loved one.
What can we learn from these traditions? How can we make our own with mementos that are important to us? These are just two examples of traditions from cultures who utilize a memorial ritual for their dead. Perhaps you could write a letter and leave it on a table beside their portrait? Creating your own grief ritual this holiday season is a small, but powerful way to acknowledge your grief around the holidays.
3) Honor Them through Gifts of Memory
We know that gift-giving is a big part of holiday traditions for many families, and the absence of someone you’re used to buying gifts for can feel tremendous. What if you re-imagined what this tradition can be?
One way to do this is to gift wrap a box with a small slit in the top of it. Place this box somewhere in the home where everyone has access to it (under a shiny tree, perhaps) and have family members write little notes or memories on slips of paper to place in the box throughout the season. Unwrap this box with family or friends and take time to read the memories out loud with your loved ones during your special holiday. This ritual can be a way of continuing the tradition of gift giving with your loved one who has passed.
The gift of these memories–like the love we share–will live on forever. This ritual can also be made with a stocking or a special decoration like a wreath. Get creative with it and utilize colors, ornaments, or trinkets that feel symbolic to you.
If you’d like to learn about more resources for holiday grief, or important ways to remember and honor your loved one around this time of year, please contact us. We’re happy to connect you with resources and help you find what you need to help you on your healing journey.