When the Holidays Make Grief a Little Louder

Finding room for love, loss, and life during a season that isn’t always merry and bright.

There is something about the holidays that makes absence feel a little louder. Maybe it’s the empty chair at the Thanksgiving table, pulling out Christmas decorations and finding an ornament that belonged to someone who isn’t here anymore, or hearing a song that takes you back to a time when life looked completely different. Maybe it’s walking through the grocery store and remembering a dish someone always made, or realizing that another year has passed without hearing a familiar voice. Sometimes there isn’t even a specific memory or moment that triggers it. You simply realize the holidays are approaching, and there’s a heaviness that settles in alongside everything else you’re feeling. The world is preparing for celebration, but part of you is remembering what used to be, what should have been, or what will never be again.

Lately, I’ve been having a lot of conversations with clients about grief and the holidays. Different people, different circumstances, different losses, but so many of the same questions and emotions. How do you enjoy a season that’s supposed to be filled with happiness when you’re painfully aware of who’s missing? How do you feel grateful for everything you still have while grieving something or someone you’ve lost? How do you participate in family traditions that no longer feel the same, or navigate gatherings where everyone seems to expect you to be happy? These conversations have reminded me just how complicated grief can be, especially during a season when we’re surrounded by messages about joy, togetherness, gratitude, and making memories.

I think one of the hardest things about grief during the holidays is that the world doesn’t stop celebrating just because your world has changed. The decorations still go up, the invitations still arrive, the Christmas music starts playing, and everywhere you look there are images of families laughing around beautifully decorated tables. We’re told this is the most wonderful time of the year, and for some people it genuinely is. But for others, those same traditions and celebrations serve as painful reminders of what is missing. And sometimes, perhaps most confusingly, the holidays are both wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time. You can love Christmas and dread it. You can look forward to seeing family and still feel overwhelmed by the thought of someone not being there. You can genuinely enjoy yourself and then suddenly find yourself fighting back tears over something that wouldn’t have seemed significant to anyone else.

What makes this even more complicated is the pressure we put on ourselves to feel a certain way. We tell ourselves we should be grateful, that we should focus on the people who are still here, that we shouldn’t let our sadness interfere with everyone else’s happiness. We might even feel guilty for struggling when we know there are still so many good things in our lives. I’ve always found it interesting how quickly we can turn a perfectly normal emotional experience into something we believe we need to fix. Instead of allowing ourselves to acknowledge that we’re sad, we start questioning why we’re sad, whether we should still be sad, and what we need to do to stop feeling that way. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have developed this expectation that grief should become less significant with each passing year, as though the amount of time that has passed should somehow determine how much we’re allowed to miss someone.

But grief doesn’t follow a calendar, and love doesn’t have an expiration date. Someone can be gone for twenty years and still be the first person you think about when a particular holiday comes around. You can have built an entirely new life, created beautiful memories, developed meaningful relationships, and experienced tremendous happiness, and still find yourself wishing you could have just one more Christmas morning, one more Thanksgiving dinner, or one more ordinary conversation with someone who is no longer here. I don’t think that means you haven’t healed or that you’re somehow stuck in the past. I think it means that person mattered, that the relationship was meaningful, and that certain experiences will always remind you of the place they occupied in your life.

And while we often associate grief with death, I think it’s important to recognize that the holidays can bring up many different kinds of loss. Some people are grieving relationships that have ended, family members they’ve become estranged from, marriages that didn’t survive, or the family dynamics they once knew. Others are grieving the holidays they imagined having with children they couldn’t have, loved ones whose health has changed, or family members who are physically present but no longer the people they used to be because of illness or other circumstances. Some are grieving the childhood they never experienced, the family connections they’ve always wanted, or the sense of belonging that seems so effortless for everyone else. There are so many ways to experience loss, and not all of them involve someone dying. Sometimes we’re grieving people who are still alive, experiences that never happened, or versions of our lives that no longer exist.

I think that’s part of what makes the holidays so emotionally complicated. They’re filled with expectations, and those expectations are often tied to memories. We remember how things used to feel, who used to be there, what we used to do, and how we imagined future holidays would look. We want to recreate those experiences because they were meaningful, familiar, and comforting, but sometimes the circumstances that made them possible no longer exist. We find ourselves trying to hold on to traditions that belong to a different chapter of our lives, and then wondering why they don’t bring us the same happiness they once did. Maybe the person who made Christmas magical isn’t there anymore. Maybe the family gathering has changed so much that it no longer feels like the same family. Maybe the traditions you’ve spent years maintaining have become more painful than comforting, but you don’t know how to change them without feeling as though you’re letting someone down.

I wonder how often we make the holidays harder on ourselves by believing they have to look the way they always have. We continue hosting gatherings we no longer enjoy, preparing meals that carry painful memories, or participating in traditions simply because that’s what we’ve always done. Sometimes those traditions provide tremendous comfort and connection, and there’s something beautiful about continuing them. But other times, they become reminders of a life we’re desperately trying to recreate. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with changing the way we celebrate as our lives change. Maybe this year you don’t want to host Thanksgiving. Maybe you want to travel for Christmas instead of staying home. Maybe you want to start a new tradition, let go of an old one, or spend the holiday doing absolutely nothing. None of those choices diminishes the importance of the people or experiences that came before them.

There’s also something about grief that I think we don’t talk about nearly enough, and that’s how it can show up in the middle of happiness. We tend to think of grief and joy as opposites, as though experiencing one means the other must temporarily disappear. But human emotions are rarely that simple. You can be sitting around a table laughing with people you love and suddenly feel an overwhelming sadness because someone else should be there laughing with you. You can enjoy watching your children open Christmas presents while wishing their grandparent could have been there to see it. You can feel genuinely excited about creating new memories and simultaneously wish you could return to an old one. I think sometimes people interpret these moments as setbacks, as though feeling sad means they’ve lost whatever progress they’ve made. But perhaps those moments are simply reminders that our capacity to experience happiness doesn’t eliminate our capacity to experience grief.

I also think we underestimate how much guilt can accompany happiness after loss. I’ve heard people describe feeling almost disloyal when they begin enjoying traditions without someone they loved. They worry that creating new memories means they’re moving on, that laughing means they’re forgetting, or that changing traditions somehow means the person who died is becoming less important. But I don’t believe continuing to live requires us to leave the people we’ve lost behind. We carry them with us in countless ways, through the things they taught us, the memories we share, the values they helped shape, and the influence they continue to have on the people we’ve become. Enjoying a holiday doesn’t mean you miss someone less, and feeling happy doesn’t mean the loss wasn’t significant. We don’t have to remain miserable to prove that someone mattered.

Another thing I’ve noticed, both personally and professionally, is how uncomfortable we can become with other people’s grief. We care about them, we don’t want to see them hurting, and we genuinely want to help, but sometimes that desire leads us to say things that unintentionally minimize what they’re experiencing. We remind them to be thankful for what they have, tell them their loved one would want them to be happy, encourage them to focus on the positive, or reassure them that things will get easier. I understand why we do this. Watching someone we care about struggle is difficult, and most of us want to offer something that makes the pain a little more manageable. But sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is stop trying to make someone’s grief disappear. We can listen without trying to fix it, ask about the person they’re missing, invite them to share a memory, or simply acknowledge that the holidays might be difficult this year.

I think we also need to remember that grief doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. Some people cry openly, while others become quiet or withdrawn. Some throw themselves into decorating, cooking, shopping, and planning because staying busy feels comforting. Others avoid the holidays altogether because the reminders feel overwhelming. Some want to talk about their loved ones constantly, while others aren’t ready to have those conversations. And sometimes the same person responds differently from one year to the next. There isn’t one correct way to experience grief, and we do people a disservice when we assume we know what they need based on how we would handle the same situation. Instead of deciding what someone should be feeling or doing, perhaps we could become more curious about what their experience is actually like.

I often think about how much energy we spend trying to avoid difficult emotions, even when those emotions are connected to something deeply meaningful. We don’t want to feel sad, so we avoid the memories. We don’t want to cry, so we change the subject. We don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, so we pretend we’re doing better than we are. And sometimes that avoidance is understandable because grief can be exhausting. But I also wonder what might happen if we gave ourselves permission to experience those emotions without immediately trying to change them. What if we could acknowledge that we miss someone without deciding that the entire day is ruined? What if we could cry over a memory and still enjoy dinner an hour later? What if we stopped expecting ourselves to feel one emotion at a time and accepted that being human means experiencing several, sometimes contradictory, emotions simultaneously?

Maybe part of navigating grief during the holidays is learning to make room for whatever shows up rather than trying to control the entire experience. That doesn’t mean we have to immerse ourselves in sadness or abandon the things that bring us joy. It simply means recognizing that grief may be part of the holiday, and that its presence doesn’t automatically mean something has gone wrong. We can make plans while allowing ourselves the flexibility to change them. We can participate in traditions that feel meaningful and let go of those that no longer serve us. We can remember people we’ve lost without feeling obligated to turn every gathering into a memorial, and we can enjoy the people who are still here without feeling guilty about the people who aren’t.

I think there’s also something important about recognizing that the anticipation of a holiday can sometimes be harder than the holiday itself. We spend weeks thinking about how difficult Thanksgiving or Christmas might be, imagining the empty chair, anticipating painful conversations, or worrying about whether we’ll be able to hold ourselves together. By the time the day arrives, we’ve already experienced so much of the emotional weight in our minds. Sometimes the holiday turns out to be easier than we expected, and sometimes it’s harder. Either way, we don’t always know how we’re going to feel until we’re actually there. Perhaps we can give ourselves permission to approach the season without requiring that we predict, prepare for, or manage every possible emotional response.

And I think it’s worth remembering that we don’t have to make every holiday meaningful. There’s a lot of pressure to create beautiful memories, honor loved ones in special ways, practice gratitude, and find purpose in our pain. Those things can be wonderful, but they can also become another set of expectations we place on ourselves. Sometimes you may want to light a candle, make someone’s favorite meal, share stories, or create a new tradition in their memory. Other times, you may simply want to eat dinner, watch a movie, and let the day pass. Neither approach says anything about how much you loved someone or how well you’re navigating your grief. Not every difficult experience needs to be transformed into a lesson, and not every holiday needs to become a meaningful milestone in your healing.

As I’ve been reflecting on these conversations, I keep coming back to the idea that grief is often the continuation of a relationship in a form we never wanted. We don’t stop loving people when they’re no longer part of our daily lives, and we don’t stop being influenced by experiences simply because those chapters have ended. The people we’ve loved become part of our stories, and those stories continue unfolding long after circumstances have changed. Maybe that’s why certain dates, traditions, and memories can still affect us so deeply. They connect us to something that mattered, and while that connection can bring sadness, it can also bring comfort, gratitude, laughter, and a sense of closeness that we might not otherwise experience.

I don’t think the goal should be to reach a point where the holidays no longer remind us of what we’ve lost. For some people, those reminders will always be there, and that’s not necessarily something that needs to be corrected. Perhaps the goal is to build a life where those memories and emotions have room to exist alongside new experiences, relationships, and possibilities. A life where we can acknowledge that something will never be the same without concluding that nothing can ever be good again. A life where remembering the past doesn’t prevent us from participating in the present, and where finding happiness doesn’t require us to forget what we’ve lost.

As we approach another holiday season, I hope we can be a little more thoughtful about what this time of year might mean for the people around us. Not everyone is excited about Thanksgiving or Christmas, and not everyone who appears happy is experiencing the season without difficulty. Someone may be attending their first holiday gathering after a significant loss, while someone else may be navigating their twentieth. Someone may be struggling with a family relationship that has changed, while someone else may be grieving the family they never had. We rarely know the full story of what another person is carrying, and sometimes a little compassion, flexibility, or willingness to listen can make an enormous difference.

And if you’re the one grieving this holiday season, I hope you give yourself permission to experience it in whatever way feels right for you. You don’t have to recreate the past, meet everyone else’s expectations, or convince yourself that you’re supposed to feel differently. You can miss someone and still laugh. You can feel grateful and still feel disappointed. You can look forward to certain traditions while dreading others, and you can change your mind about what you need along the way. There is room for all of those experiences, even when they seem to contradict one another.

Maybe the holidays will never feel exactly the way they once did, and perhaps part of grief is coming to terms with that reality. But different doesn’t have to mean that every meaningful or beautiful experience belongs to the past. There are still conversations to be had, memories to be made, relationships to nurture, and moments of joy that we haven’t experienced yet. None of those things can replace the people or experiences we’ve lost, and they aren’t supposed to. They simply remind us that life continues to hold possibilities, even when it also holds pain.

The holidays don’t have to be entirely happy to be meaningful, and they don’t have to be free of grief to contain moments worth celebrating. Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do for ourselves is stop trying to make the season look or feel a certain way and simply allow it to be what it is. We can appreciate what remains, acknowledge what has changed, and remember what we’ve lost without feeling obligated to choose between them. Because maybe the empty chair doesn’t have to disappear for us to recognize that there’s still love, connection, and life happening around the table.

And maybe, for this holiday season, that’s enough.