Dealing with Loss During the Holiday Season
While the holiday season is filled with love and smiles for some, it is also filled with grief, loss, and challenges for others. Loss during the holiday season is an important topic to recognise and accept. Unlike work or school, grief does not go on summer holidays. Emotions associated with loss can be exhausting, and challenging and endure over time, even despite expectations for excitement and happiness during the Holiday Season. This is why we need to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, especially during the holiday period.
This idea is also navigated by Lucy Hone, researcher and director, as she explores that “holidays can be hard to endure when we are grieving”.
There are several tips that you can implement, especially if you are processing or experiencing grief, to help you deal with loss during this Holiday Season.
Tip One - Remove Social Media
It is vital that during this time, you allow yourself to put away social media. This allows you to take control over the media you are consuming, thus eliminating overexposure to highlight reels and unrealistic ideals associated with the Christmas period.
Periods of loss or challenging emotions can be disproportionately represented online among highlight reels of your neighbour’s ‘perfect family photos’ and your friend’s ‘aesthetic home-cooked Christmas meals’. In this way, social media is filled with unrealistic expectations of Christmas.
Some pressures of Christmas are explored here, as social media creates pressures to “pick up every tradition going and make Christmas as magical as possible”. These expectations are hard enough amid a cost of living crisis, let alone during periods of loss.
Therefore, it is vital to give yourself and your mind a break from the online world during the Holiday Season. What you see online is only a mere snapshot of a moment, and not necessarily the full story or an accurate representation.
Tip Two - Spend Time with Loved Ones
If you are experiencing challenging emotions of loss, it is even more important to spend time with those you love and care about while having open, vulnerable conversations. This can provide you with the opportunity to process your grief and feelings while gaining support and perspective from those you care about.
If you are grieving alongside others, you can be intentional about supporting and taking care of each other. Or, if you are grieving on your own, those around you can still look after you and provide a safe place for you to express your thoughts and feelings
Spending time with loved ones can encourage you to stay open and honest. This can alleviate bottled-up thoughts and emotions while keeping others in the loop with how you are doing, so they can continue looking out for you.
Tip Three - Make a Plan
Do some brainstorming and create a rough plan and/or routine for the holiday season.
You might like to consider:
How do I want to spend my mornings? Could I go for a walk? Do I want to have a sleep-in? Could I cook myself a yummy breakfast?
Who would I like to spend some time with? Do I want to see my friends, family, and/or neighbours?
What would I like to do? Could I have Christmas dinner at my friends’ house? Or, could I host some loved ones? Do I want to watch a Christmas movie?
You can also encourage yourself to join in on the holiday celebrations - make that iconic Pavlova or Christmas ham for your loved ones! This can bring yourself and others moments of joy, even among sadness.
Having a guide for how you might like to spend the holiday season can alleviate anxieties and uncertainties about what you are going to do with yourself during challenging periods of loss. It is important that while you might have a general plan, you also stay flexible and open. Expect the unexpected, as it is okay for plans to change!
Tip Four - Recognize your Emotions
Even despite planning, spending time with loved ones and joining in on celebrations, it is still vital that you give yourself space to recognize (and feel) your emotions. Stay mindful and tune into how you are feeling - try your best not to suppress those emotions! You could try doing this by being kind and gentle with yourself. Speak to yourself kindly and let yourself feel how you need to feel. Release the need to control your emotions.
It is also okay (and normal) to feel conflicting emotions. You can celebrate the holiday season while still grieving. You are not expected to feel completely sad or completely happy at any given moment. Emotions do not have to be all or nothing (while it is also okay if they are too!). You can allow yourself to celebrate and join in on fun festive events while still honouring and processing your challenging emotions.
It’s really important to remember that there is no one way to grieve nor to celebrate someone’s life. If you feel ready and want to honour those who’ve passed please do, and equally, if you’re not ready, allow some space and politely decline any kind-hearted encouragement to do so - only you will know what you’re ready for.
The only real thing that helps, from experience here, is allowing time throughout the day to really check in with yourself. Allow space to go walk, rest, drive and belt out a Christmas tune - or whatever you need to ‘be’ present with yourself on the day. The temptation can be to stay busy, but allowing space to be with your feelings is really powerful.
If you have the willingness to do so, honouring those that have passed can be really lovely and poignant, be it their favourite food, a toast, carrying on a tradition they loved, holding their memory close on these big occasions may also be comforting (and tear-inducing - it can be both!).
Tip Five - Honor Traditions
Spend some time honoring your traditions of the holiday season, while creating space for new ones. Allow yourself to be present in the moment and create new memories. You can do this while simultaneously appreciating memories, rituals, traditions, and loved ones.
Take some time to reflect on the traditions you've enjoyed in the past. What made them special? Which ones hold sentimental value? Acknowledge and appreciate those moments.
Let yourself be open to new experiences, as traditions may naturally either endure or change over time, and that's okay. Embracing change can lead to the discovery of new traditions, which can also hold meaning for you and your loved ones.
Take a moment to express gratitude for the traditions, past and present, that bring joy and meaning to your holiday season. Acknowledge the role of loved ones and share experiences that bring you happiness during this time.
By blending the old and the new, you can create a holiday season that honours your roots while embracing opportunities for growth and new memories.
Overall, processing loss amid the holiday season can be challenging and daunting. Therefore, it is important to spend some time with loved ones, recognise your emotions, and tune into how you are feeling. It is more than okay to join in on the festivities and create new memories while staying true to your emotions and treating yourself gently. You are allowed to feel exactly how you feel. We are all human and have complex emotions, meaning that we may feel happy, sad, stressed, excited, and everything in between - all at the same time.
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