If You’re Grieving the Holidays this Year, You’re Not Alone

I don’t know about you but I feel as if I’ve been trying to live life normally these days, just to keep sane.

So, that means that I’ve been trying to do the normal holiday things this year: bake cookies, decorate the house, trim the tree.

But I’ve felt heartache this year that I’ve been trying to ignore.

Have you felt it too?

It’s the ache that comes from being away from family and friends.

It’s the sadness that you feel when realizing there will be no going to see The Nutcracker, or having friends over for an ugly sweater party.

It’s the knowledge that nursing homes will be quiet this year without visitors and carolers. Soup kitchens will be more function than festivity. Children’s hospitals won’t have guest readers or friends to stop in and say hello.

The awareness that, try as you might to have a normal holiday, nothing is normal this year.

And I can only hope that “this too shall pass,” a phrase that has been my anthem during this confusing and grief filled year. But it doesn’t make the moments any less challenging or any less painful.

So, I wanted to let you know, in case you’re feeling all of these same feelings:

If you’re grieving the holidays this year, you’re not alone.

It’s ok to cry, to feel blue (what a year for Elvis’ Blue Christmas this year, right?), to sit in that disappointment and anger of a year that has been so frustratingly unexpected.

And there isn’t anything magical that will change these feelings or make them go away.

It just is. That’s what we have to do with grief sometimes, we have to sit in it, even though it’s about the last thing we want to do.

Sometimes letting grief be a part of us for a while helps us to process it, sometimes it lingers with us even though we might feel moment of joy, contentment, and happiness.

That’s the funny thing about grief, it can come and go. But I want to remind you that there’s nothing wrong with you for carrying that sadness with you this year.

You might be feeling like you need to have it all pulled together. The Hallmark formula Christmas movies make it seem like it’s just been another year (though, don’t get me wrong, I love a good Hallmark movie). But we all know this has been an extremely challenging, trying, and emotionally exhausting year.

And that’s ok.

So, even though you’re feeling grief this year, even though you’re trying to reconcile what to do with the sadness, I also want to say this.

It’s ok to feel joy too.

It’s ok to have some relief about not having to travel for the holidays. It’s just fine to be grateful about buying fewer presents or not having to attend your mom’s cousin’s Christmas party. And it’s absolutely ok to have Christmas dinner in your pajamas.

The thing about this year, this strange season we are all in, is that we are all in this together.

Our collective moments of grief and joy are what will sustain us, draw us closer together even though we must remain apart.

Soul friend, this is a holiday season meant both for loving others, and for loving yourself. Take the time you need to process your feelings. Be ok with the ups and downs of this time, and hold onto that anthem with me:

“This too shall pass.”

There will be other blog posts this month about “normal” holiday things to do or ways to be festive this year. But I wanted to write this first to let you know that I’m right there with you. The grief and sadness is real, the ache and loss is tangible, and that you are not alone.