How to manage the festive season when you’re grieving, according to experts

It’s the time of year when everyone’s supposed to be celebrating, but Christmas often brings up a tangle of memories of the people we’re missing. Katie Rosseinsky asks grief counsellors for their advice on how to navigate the festivities when you’re feeling anything but festive

Christmas can be difficult to navigate when you’re missing a loved one (Getty/iStock)

If you turn on the TV or scroll through social media at this time of year, it’s impossible to avoid the bombardment of images of happy families jostling for space around the Christmas dinner table. But for those of us who are grieving, those cheery tableaux – from supermarket adverts to Instagram galleries – can serve as an unwelcome reminder of exactly what (and who) you might be missing this December.

When someone you love dies, you soon learn that bereavement doesn’t follow a neat timeline. Your feelings don’t conveniently fade into the background just because we’ve reached what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of year, and everyone else would feel a lot more comfortable if you could just stick on a smile and perform. “Grief doesn’t respect the fact that it’s Christmas and you feel you ‘need’ to be happy,” says Ruth Cooper-Dickson, a trauma-informed grief coach.

It’s that strange disjunction between all the external trappings of comfort and joy and the knotty reality of your emotions that can make this season such a difficult one when you’re grappling with loss – whether you are navigating it for the first time or the twentieth. Christmas “brings up so much – wonderful times and really challenging times”, as Kate Winslet put it during a recent podcast appearance; her latest film, Goodbye June, deals with the reality of mourning over the (not so) festive period. So what can you do to make it ever so slightly easier on yourself?

First of all, it’s worth delving deeper into exactly why this stretch of time can be so tricky; that way, you’re less likely to start reproaching yourself when a wave of sadness inevitably breaks. One reason, Cooper-Dickson suggests, is that when you deal with loss, you often lean into routine as “part of your coping strategy – it’s how you’re navigating hour by hour, day by day”. That structure can feel comforting, whether it’s a weekly coffee date with a friend or simply an exercise class that helps to clear your head. But when the Christmas holidays roll around, “the schedule is all out of sync”, she notes. You’re off work, the kids are off school, your sleep pattern might be thrown off kilter by socialising (and alcohol). And as we get further into December, the world around you seems to gradually shut down – leaving you adrift.

So even if you’ve managed to keep busy in the run up to 25 December, that strange lull between Christmas and New Year might be a period when “loss is magnified”, says therapist and grief coach Dipti Solanki. “When that busyness of everyday life stops, you’re confronted by the reality of that person not being here and the impact of it.”

Unlike any other part of the year, the festive season tends to be layered with recollection, nostalgia and little rituals. That sense of repetition can make a loss feel even more stark; your thoughts inevitably turn towards the many times you might have, say, decorated the house, cooked the turkey or sung along to a particular song with the person you’re missing, who won’t be around to do that any more.

Kate Winslet’s new film, ‘Goodbye June’, deals with the reality of bereavement at Christmas (Netflix)

“It’s a time when I really start to miss my own dad, and a time that brings out the child in all of us as well,” Solanki says. “We’ve all got so many memories of Christmas, and it brings up all the things you used to do together: this is how we have dinner, this is when we put the tree up, all these traditions. Then if there’s a certain person missing, it’s going to feel very profound. It doesn’t matter how many years [since their death], it’s going to feel emptier and their presence is going to be missed.”

Everyone grieves differently, and so it follows that everyone will have a different threshold of what they can and can’t face in the Christmas social whirl. “You may have someone who has experienced a loss that doesn’t actually want to take up all the invitations this year, and that’s OK,” Solanki notes. “Or you may have someone who’s holding a lot of fresh grief, but their coping mechanism is to be around people and to smile as much as they can. That’s OK too.”

It’s worth thinking carefully about what is right for you well in advance of the day itself, and then getting candid with your family about what you will and won’t be doing. Maybe you just want to treat Christmas like an ordinary day. Maybe you want to volunteer for a charity, to take your mind off things. Or maybe you’ve opted in for a business-as-usual celebration. If it’s the latter – perhaps you’re with the in-laws this year, for example – make a plan in case things become overwhelming, rather than just gritting your teeth, fixing your smile and hoping for the best.

We’ve all got so many memories of Christmas, and it brings up all the things you used to do together

Dipti Solanki

“If you’re going to a Christmas party at someone’s house, or you’re going to somebody’s for Christmas Day, ask if you can have a bolt hole,” suggests Maria Bailey, founder of Grief Specialists, a network of grief experts. Knowing that there’s a quiet space where you can take a moment to gather yourself can make socialising feel less daunting. “If you think you might need a time out, if you plan it in advance, then you’re in control and you can relax,” Bailey says.

Or, if you’re feeling a bit awkward about having to admit to your host that things might become too much, you might want to tell yourself, “if it gets tough, I’m going to step outside, or I’m going to walk to the shop and pick something up”, says Cooper-Dickson. Perhaps you can organise your own travel plans, so that you can leave on your own terms if you’re overwhelmed, rather than having to wait around until other people decide that the day has finished.

Having a plan about how you’re going to navigate the big day might help make it feel more manageable (Getty/iStock)

And working out how you’re going to answer those “how are you?” enquiries ahead of time might stop you from spiralling in the moment, too. “We don’t want to go spilling our guts to everybody that will listen, because we can’t make ourselves that emotionally vulnerable,” Solanki says. “But emotional honesty is really important.” She recommends practising phrases like “Christmas can feel tricky at times, but I’m finding different ways to be more comfortable with it, and it’s really lovely to be here with you all” – something, essentially, that “acknowledges that you are finding it difficult, but also that it feels good to be in this situation at this moment”.

If you feel up to it, “consider what traditions you might want to carry on”, suggests Cooper-Dickson, as this “gives you the opportunity to bring [the person you’re grieving] back into the family fold”. Perhaps there is a carol concert or theatre show you always attended with them, which you want to keep as part of your annual routine; maybe you just want to play their favourite music when you’re doing a particular bit of festive admin.

Again, make sure you’re considering what will make you feel better, rather than feeling like you have to utterly adhere to the exact routine you’d have played out with that person. “One of the biggest things that people think is ‘I’ve forgotten them if we don’t make their favourite Christmas pudding’, or something like that,” Cooper-Dickson says. But of course, that isn’t the case. Not buying a particular dessert doesn’t mean you’re failing to keep their memory alive.

Consider what traditions you might want to carry on

Ruth Cooper-Dickson

But if old rituals feel too weighed down with recollections right now, think about new ways to remember your loved one. For Bailey, the moment that she and her family sit down for Christmas dinner tends to be when she’s confronted with her late mum’s absence, “so we have a tradition of raising a glass to her and saying ‘happy Christmas, Grandma’”, she says. “So you’ve got this empty chair, but what can you do to start a new tradition?” You can even “buy yourself a present from them” and pick out something that you know they’d want you to enjoy.

Most important, though, is making space for your grief, as Solanki puts it. “By that I mean, if [the feeling] comes up, don’t push it down,” she says. Instead, allow yourself to actually feel those difficult feelings. Writing your emotions down might help; so might “making time to go and see a therapist”, or just to “sit and have a good cry”. Doing this allows you to “also make space for the good stuff”, Solanki believes.

“I think it’s when people try to avoid [grief] and don’t think about it, just focus on the good, that it becomes really difficult to contain,” she adds. “We create an atmosphere of a pressure cooker within. But if we allow those feelings space to be felt, then there’s less guilt, less pressure and less sadness within us, so we can enjoy the other stuff.”

It’s a very human contradiction, she adds, that “we can hold our grief, but also hold joy at the same time”. Cooper-Dickson agrees that we shouldn’t tie ourselves in guilt-ridden knots if we’re having a good time; enjoying Christmas doesn’t equate to disrespecting your loved one’s memory (in fact, wouldn’t they rather you were happy?) “Maybe it’s a movie or something on the TV, or something that somebody does, and for a minute there, you do laugh,” she says. “But you’ve not forgotten [them], that memory is still there.”