A short talk by David Kessler offering practical guidance for coping with grief during holidays after losing a loved one. He acknowledges holidays' focus on togetherness, recommends finding personally suitable approaches (engaging in busyness or skipping holidays), and suggests rituals (prayers, candle-lighting, private remembrance) to give grief a place.
How do I get through the holidays without my loved one?
The holidays can be some of the toughest days that you will go through after the loss of your loved one. Holidays are all about togetherness, and how do we celebrate togetherness when we're no longer together with that loved one? So for many people, they dread going into the holidays. And I often say, find out what works for you. And you may not know that right away. For some people, the structure, the busyness of the holidays is actually helpful. Other people feel like I can't do the holidays at all. And if that's true for you, give yourself permission to skip a holiday. They're going to come around again next year and just know that that's okay to do it. Some other things you can do, if there's events that you're going to, such as Christmas dinner, Thanksgiving dinner, you can ask people to say a prayer in honor of your loved one. You can ask that a candle be lit. Many times you may want to save those things that you do them privately before the dinner or before the get together, but give your grief a place during the holidays.
