How Do You Get Through the Holidays After a Loss?

The holidays can be a complicated time of the year, filled with mixed emotions, especially if this is your first holiday season after a death, a divorce, or another loss. But even if it’s not your first, the season can bring back painful memories and emotions. Grief doesn’t follow a calendar, after all, and the holidays are ripe with emotional triggers.

To get through the holidays after a significant loss, begin by planning for them ahead of time. Decide – without judgement – which traditions you still want to observe and what changes you want to make, and choose one way to honor what you lost. It’s also a good idea to reach out to a mental health professional. Grief during the holidays is common and nothing to be ashamed of.

This guide is for anyone heading into a difficult holiday season. Whether you faced the death of someone close, ended a marriage or relationship, or suddenly changed what you thought what the future would look like.

Why the First Holidays After a Loss Feel So Hard

The holidays are built on tradition and repetition; the same recipes, the same seats at the table, and the same stories each year. That repetition is part of what can make the season so comforting for some, but after a loss, it might also cause you a sense of dread. Each old ritual can point us straight at who or what is missing.

The first holiday after a loss is often the hardest because it’s the first time you face all of those reminders at once. It could be your first time cooking Christmas dinner without a loved one, or your first New Year’s Eve since a diagnosis changed what you thought the future would look like.

You aren’t alone in this. According to the American Psychiatric Association, in 2025 48% of US adults reported worries about missing someone or grieving during the holidays. There are some things that tend to compound and make holiday grief heavier:

• The pressure to feel joyful. Around this time, it seems like all the holiday music, ads, and people on social media are badgering you to feel happy and grateful. When you’re experiencing a loss, that pressure to feel happy can leave you feeling anxious and out of step with everyone else.
• Anniversaries stacked on anniversaries. Many losses happen near the holidays, or the holidays mark the first “round” of special dates without someone.
• More time with family. Gatherings bring up old dynamics, which can be an additional source of stress if those around you have different ways of coping with the same grief.
• Exhaustion. Grief is tiring on its own. When you add shopping, travel, hosting and year-end work deadlines, it can feel absolutely depleting.

It’s also important to say that grief isn’t only about death. Divorce, estrangement, infertility, a health diagnosis, a job loss or a move away from home are all real losses. The American Psychological Association notes that grief can follow many kinds of loss, not only bereavement. If your loss doesn’t look like what other people expect grief to look like, your feelings still count.

What to Do With Holiday Traditions After a Loss

You might feel naturally confused about what to do with old traditions around this time of the year. Should you keep doing everything the same? Skip it all? There isn’t a single right answer, but Harvard Health Publishing’s guide to coping with grief and loss during the holidays suggests changing plans and starting new traditions. It helps to look at each tradition on its own and ask a simple question: does this bring me comfort, or does it only bring pain right now?

From there, most traditions fall into one of four choices.

Keep the Traditions That Comfort You

Some traditions can help you feel close to the person or the life you’ve lost. Lighting a candle, making a favorite recipe or hanging a special ornament can be a way of keeping a connection alive. If a tradition feels meaningful, even if it also brings tears, it may be worth keeping. Tears and comfort can live side by side.

Change the Traditions That Feel Too Heavy

You don’t have to choose between doing a tradition exactly the same way or not at all. You can adjust it. Host dinner at a sibling’s house instead of yours. Go out to a restaurant instead of cooking. Open gifts on a different day. Small changes can take the sting out of a ritual that feels too painful to repeat exactly as it was.

Retire the Traditions You Aren’t Ready For

It’s OK to set something aside this year, or for good. If decorating the whole house feels impossible, put up a few lights or nothing at all. If a holiday party you used to love would mean answering the same questions all night, you can say no. There’s nothing wrong with retiring a tradition if it’s no longer right for you.

Create New Traditions That Honor Your Loss

Many people find it helpful to start something new that makes room for the loss instead of avoiding it. Facing it head-on can be liberating and take pressure away from trying to navigate around it. A few ideas:

• Set a place at the table or share a favorite memory before the meal.
• Donate to a cause your loved one cared about, or volunteer together as a family.
• Write a letter to the person you lost and read it privately or aloud.
• After a divorce, plan something that belongs to you and your kids, like a holiday movie night or a new breakfast tradition.
• Take a walk, visit a meaningful place or spend quiet time alone, if that’s what you need.

You don’t have to try to replace what you lost with new traditions. Instead, let the season adapt to the life you’re living now.

How to Handle Family Expectations During the Holidays

Getting to spend time with family and reconnect is one of the best parts of the holidays, often, it’s also one of the hardest. After a loss, family expectations can feel overwhelming. Maybe there’s pressure on you to host like you always have, or to act like nothing has changed, or even to bring up things you’re not ready to discuss yet.

Remember that grief feels different for everyone. Everyone in your family is grieving in their own way. Your sister may want to talk about your mom all night while you need a break from it. Your ex-in-laws may not know what to say to you at all. None of that means anyone is grieving wrong. It does mean that you’ll likely need to speak up for what you need. People can’t read your mind, even the ones who love you most.

If it all feels like too much, remember that you can skip out on family gatherings altogether.

Decide What You Need Before the Invitations Arrive

Take a few quiet minutes before the season gets busy and ask yourself what you can handle this year. Do you want to be with people, or do you need more time alone? Would a short visit feel better than a full day? Knowing your limits ahead of time makes it much easier to answer questions in the moment, when emotions are running high.

Say What You Need, Kindly and Clearly

You don’t owe anyone a long explanation. A few simple phrases can go a long way.

• “I’d love to come for dinner, but I’ll probably head out before dessert.”
• “I’m not up for hosting this year. Could we try something different?”
• “I’d like to talk about Dad at some point today. It would mean a lot to me.”
• “I’m not ready to talk about the divorce. Can we keep things light today?”

If someone asks you how you’re feeling, you don’t have to be dishonest, but you also don’t have to share any more than you’re comfortable with. It’s not selfish to set boundaries. It’s a way to protect your energy so you can show up for the people and moments that matter most to you.

Plan an Exit and a Safe Person

It can be a big relief to know you can leave. Drive yourself so you aren’t stuck. Agree on a signal with a partner, friend or sibling who understands what you’re carrying. Give yourself permission to step outside, take a walk or spend a few minutes alone in a quiet room. Having an exit plan often means you’ll feel calm enough that you don’t need to use it.

Let Go of Getting It Perfect

There’s no perfect way to spend a holiday after a loss. Some moments will feel surprisingly OK. Others may knock the wind out of you. If you end up leaving early, crying in the car or skipping a gathering altogether, that doesn’t mean you handled it badly. It means you’re human, and you’re doing your best with something hard.

Giving Yourself Permission to Do the Holidays Differently

If you take one thing from this post, I hope it’s this: you’re allowed to do the holidays differently this year. You don’t need anyone’s approval, and you don’t need to have a good reason that other people will understand.

That permission can look like a lot of things:

• Permission to feel more than one thing. You can laugh at the dinner table and cry on the drive home. Joy doesn’t erase grief, and grief doesn’t cancel out joy.
• Permission to scale back. Fewer gifts, fewer events, store-bought pie. Simplifying isn’t giving up. It’s making the season manageable.
• Permission to change your mind. You might say yes to a gathering and then realize the morning of that you can’t do it. That’s OK.
• Permission to rest. Grief takes a real physical toll. Sleep, eat regular meals, get outside when you can and go easy on alcohol, which can make low moods harder.
• Permission to be alone, or not. Some people need solitude. Others need to be around people more than ever. Either is fine.

Remember that what you do this year doesn’t need to set the rules for every year that comes after. You aren’t choosing how the holidays will always be. You’re just choosing how to get through this one, with as much kindness toward yourself as you can manage.

It’s also worth knowing that loneliness is a very common part of grief, even when you’re surrounded by people who care.

When Holiday Grief Is a Sign to Reach Out for Support

Feeling sad, tired or irritable during a hard holiday season is a normal part of grief. But sometimes the season brings up more than you can carry on your own. It may be time to talk with a therapist if:

• You’re dreading the holidays so much that it’s affecting your sleep, work or relationships.
• You’ve been pulling away from the people and activities that usually matter to you.
• It’s been many months since your loss, and the pain feels as sharp as it did at the start, or sharper.
• You’re having a hard time handling family conflict or making decisions about the season.
• You feel stuck, numb or like you’re just going through the motions.

In Mariann’s experience, people reach out when the holiday season starts feeling like too much to bear. When reaching out, “people usually say ‘I’m so overwhelmed.’ Or ‘I’m so upset.’ They might even start crying. But they usually come in with ‘I’m so overwhelmed.'”

For some people, grief that stays intense for a long time is called prolonged grief disorder, and it’s something therapy can help with. You don’t need a diagnosis to reach out, though. If the season feels heavy, that’s reason enough. Remember that you can start treatment at any time.

Grief Support This Holiday Season in New York and Arizona

You don’t have to get through this season by yourself, and you don’t have to have it all figured out before you reach out. ChangeLife offers grief and loss therapy services. We can talk about what you’re facing, make a plan for the hardest days and give your grief the space it deserves, without judgment and without rushing you.

All sessions are fully online, so you can connect from the comfort and privacy of your own home. Mariann is certified in both New York and Arizona. That makes it easier to get support during a session that’s already full, and you will be matched with Mariann directly, not with a random therapist.

ChangeLife accepts many insurance plans, including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Medicare, UnitedHealthcare (including Oxford and GHI/Emblem) and Carelon, as well as a number of Employee Assistance Programs. Please note that we don’t accept medicaid.

Ready to talk? Book your free 15-minute consultation with us, or call 516-544-9322. Prefer to text? Send a message to 480-586-8737. You’ll hear back quickly, and there’s no pressure to commit to anything on that first call. You don’t have to get through this holiday season alone.

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