Grief During the Holidays: 12 Ways to Find Grace When Someone You Love Is Missing
The holiday season, so often a time of warmth and joy, can be an especially hard stretch when someone you love is no longer here. You may find yourself wondering, how do I get through the holidays without them? How do I find joy in a season that highlights everything I’ve lost? If that resonates, know that you’re not alone, and it’s okay to feel this way.
What follows is part roadmap, part permission slip: how grief tends to move through the first holiday seasons, twelve ways to care for yourself along the way, and a personal story about a bare Christmas tree that taught me how love outlasts absence. For a companion perspective, this thoughtful guide on facing grief and loss during the holidays is worth your time too.
Never had a reading with me and wondering about the tone, the boundaries, the clarity I bring? Take a minute with what to expect from a reading with me.
For deeper guidance, exclusive offers, and first pick of my most requested reading spots, join my email list, where I only send what actually matters and never a scrap of spam.
What Do the First Three Holiday Seasons of Grief Feel Like?
Grief keeps its own calendar.
Grief during the holidays is a unique journey, often unfolding differently across the first few years. Knowing the terrain ahead can soften it.
Year one tends to feel raw and surreal. The first season without them can seem almost unreal, as if the loss hasn’t fully landed. Memories flood every tradition, song, and scent, making the absence more pronounced, and it’s natural to catch yourself waiting for them to walk through the door. Gentle support for this stage lives in this piece on coping with grief at Christmas and in my own guide to finding peace after loss.
Year two carries the quiet weight of permanence. The second season often brings a deeper awareness that this is not a temporary chapter. You may feel quieter, more introspective, as the grief settles into you differently. Notably, many grievers find the second year harder than the first, a pattern What’s Your Grief explores with real candor, so please don’t judge yourself if year two stings more.
Year three onward, joy and grief learn to share a room. Sadness still lingers, and alongside it, moments of happiness and warmth become possible again, carried right beside their memory. More on finding that balance lives in this reflection on Christmas grief.
What Are 12 Ways to Manage Grief During the Holidays?
Counting down to the one that keeps them close.
- Acknowledge your vulnerability. Emotions run heightened through the holidays, and extra sensitivity is natural. Recognize the difficulty of this season and give yourself permission to feel exactly as you do.
- Be prepared for mood swings. Your mood may shift unpredictably, moment to moment. Embrace the ups and downs as a normal part of grieving, without judgment.
- Expect changes in social needs. Craving company one minute and solitude the next is common. Let your social needs ebb and flow as they will, and be kind to yourself about it.
- Accept variations in sleep and appetite. Routines drift when you’re grieving; sleep and eating habits often shift. Nourish your body as best you can and skip the guilt.
- Communicate your needs to others. Friends and family don’t always know how to support you. Some will try to cheer you up, others will give you space. Tell them plainly what you need: company, a listening ear, or time alone.
- Allow yourself to cry. When tears come, let them flow. Crying is a powerful release that brings real relief, and grieving is a healing process, not a weakness.
- Recognize complex emotions. Grief stirs sadness, anger, sometimes even resentment toward the person you’ve lost. Every one of those feelings is normal; acknowledge them and let them be part of the process. Medium Lindsay Marino shares more in her tips for grieving through the holidays.
- Know you don’t have to participate. Declining invitations or opting out of gatherings is perfectly okay; grief follows no one else’s timetable. The Washington Post explores choosing what’s best for your mental health this time of year.
- Move your body for your mind. Physical activity, even a simple walk, releases tension and refocuses the mind, a gentle outlet during a heavy time.
- Reach out when you need support. Talking about your loss eases the burden. Lean on trusted friends, family, or a support group when the feelings need somewhere to go.
- Trust that relief comes with time. Grief doesn’t vanish overnight, and the intense sadness does gradually ease. Give yourself grace, knowing brighter days return slowly and then surely.
- Create new traditions that honor your loved one. Light a candle in their honor, set aside minutes for reflection, share stories about them around the table. Weaving their memory into new rituals keeps their presence alive and transforms grief into a gentle act of remembrance, which is exactly why this one sits at number one.
Is It Okay to Skip the Holidays While Grieving?
Permission slip, signed and dated.
You don’t have to force yourself into celebrations that don’t feel right. Declining invitations is a valid choice, and no one is owed a brave face or a performance of festivity you don’t feel. Giving yourself permission to sit this one out can be an important step in honoring your grief.
Gentle movement helps more than it seems like it should. A walk releases built-up tension, offers healthy distraction, and clears the mind without pretending the sadness away. Salt water helps too, in all its forms: tears, sweat, and salt water baths are each conduits of emotional healing, settling the nervous system into deep tranquility. Personally, I love the shock of jumping into the frigid Canadian ocean; I call it the full-factory reset.
When you need someone to talk to about the loss, reach out. Connection with family, friends, or a support group gives your grief the space it deserves, and leaning on others is a step toward healing, never a sign of weakness.
Can Helping Others Heal Your Grief?
Service fills the space that loss hollowed out.
One of the most healing ways through grief is transforming it into kindness. Volunteer at a shelter, join a food drive, give time to an organization close to your heart.
Selfless service, especially during the holidays, creates a sense of connection and fulfillment that heals from an unexpected direction. In giving, we begin to fill some of the emotional void that loss leaves behind.
Are Our Loved Ones Still With Us During the Holidays?
Unseen is not the same as gone.
Even without their physical presence, it’s natural to feel that your loved one is still with you in spirit. Just because you can’t see or hear them doesn’t mean they aren’t close.
They live on in every story, every cherished memory, every comforting thought that surfaces unannounced. Their love remains, reminding us to be brave, to keep living fully, and to cherish the people still beside us. Curious about the ways loved ones visit in dreams? Discover more here.
How Does Connection Carry Us Through Holiday Grief?
A hospice volunteer’s honest observation.
As a hospice volunteer, I see firsthand how much we need each other. The holidays remind us of our shared humanity, of the strength that comes when we set aside differences, let go of ego, and simply stay present for one another. Each of us carries a private struggle, and every one of us benefits from kindness.
Here’s a story of what that presence can do. When I first met my husband, I knew his mother had passed before he told me. That Christmas, he insisted his dad put up lights and get a tree, knowing I’d be visiting; they hadn’t decorated since she died, and the weight of that choice was clear. On Christmas Eve we found the tree standing bare in the living room, a quiet symbol of their grief.
We pulled down the old boxes, and I handed them ornaments one by one, asking for the story behind each. With every story the mood lifted, and her loving spirit filled the room, as if she were laughing and reminiscing right beside us. It took welcoming an unbiased person into their space to call those stories out of storage along with the ornaments.
When people say loved ones live on in our memories, it’s an invitation to feel their love again. Lean into those memories and let them comfort you, transforming residual sadness into warmth, which, as a psychic medium, is exactly what connecting with heaven feels like. (Yes, really.)
This holiday season, lean into the memories that bring comfort. Take care of yourself, seek support when you need it, and let the people around you know they’re cherished. In embracing love and honoring those no longer with us, we create a season filled with meaning, even when it looks different than it once did. When you feel ready for deeper support, book a session with me here, always in your own time.
Keep Reading
Chris Bennett is an internationally recognized psychic medium and tarot reader, widely considered one of the best in the world. Through The Tarot Medium, he reads exclusively online for clients across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, with more than 200 published articles and hundreds of five-star reviews to his name. His work blends evidential mediumship with the grounded symbolism of Tarot, always as a supplement to good therapy rather than a replacement for it.
