A Grieving Witch’s Holiday Survival Guide
There’s no getting around it: the holidays suck when you’ve lost someone you love.
While outside things might look “merry and bright,” grievers would rather hide under a blanket and not come out until next spring.
Yet, the holidays exist and will continue to return each year, no matter how much we wish they would just disappear.
So we need to find survival strategies that will help us get through this difficult time of year without being floored by our grief.
In this post, I’ve put together a few tips that I’ll be using to survive the holidays this year. I hope some of them will help you, too, but take what you need and leave anything that doesn’t feel aligned.
Give your emotions space
The thing about grief is that you never know when it might hit you. You can dread an upcoming anniversary or birthday for weeks, only to find that on the actual day you feel…okay.
Conversely, sometimes there’ll be random days that turn you into a sobbing pile of jelly in the supermarket aisle.
There are loads of triggers around the holiday season, whether it’s going to a seasonal event you used to attend with your person, having one less present to put under the tree (or open), seeing happy families together, watching one of those tear jerking holiday ads, or hearing their favourite Christmas song.
You never know when grief is going to sneak up and whack you on the head, so try to build some time into each day to process your emotions — for example, by journaling, meditating, going for a walk, talking it out with a trusted friend, or just having a really good cry.
Set boundaries
Grieving at this time of year can be really rough. Seeing other people getting excited as they count down to celebrating together is a smack in the face for all who are processing loss.
Protect yourself during this time. If you want to go to that holiday party then do — but if you’d rather stay in bed and eat a whole box of Quality Street, that’s fine, too.
Same goes for how you decide to spend the holiday. You might feel certain obligations towards family members, but if you’d rather be on a beach in Bali, it’s okay to let them know that’s what you need this year.
Similarly, if you want to skip the office Christmas party or any other event, just let people know it’s a difficult time of year for you and you need to sit it out this time.
Just beware not to isolate yourself too much — make sure you spend time with trusted friends and loved ones and attend any events that light you up.
Honour traditions you shared with your person
Whether you celebrate Diwali, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, or Kwanzaa, this time of year usually brings out ghosts of the past for grievers.
One of the best ways to honour those memories is to keep the traditions going. Okay, you might not feel like doing everything you did with your person — especially not the first (or second, or third…) year — but perhaps you can still observe an annual ritual you shared with them.
Then again, recreating the holidays exactly as they would have done them might be exactly what you need. There’s no right or wrong here, so do what makes you feel good when it comes to holiday traditions.
Give to a charity they supported
Christmas is a time of giving not only gifts to our loved ones but also those less fortunate than ourselves. Helping others can take us out of our grief for a little while and remind us of our common humanity.
All humans suffer, but it’s easy to forget that when you’re grieving. Giving to a charity your person supported is not only a great way to honour their memory but also a chance to connect with your compassion and remember you’re not alone.
Give thanks for the good times
This isn’t so easy early on in grief, but as time passes, a sliver of light starts to pierce the dark clouds, and you begin to feel gratitude that you got to have your person in your life at all.
It’s easy to fixate on the pain and injustice of loss, but taking some time to reflect and be grateful for the times you shared together can help you remember how lucky you were to have them in your life.
Listen to their favorite Christmas music (or don’t)
Music is deeply connected to memories and emotions, and there are days when you just can’t bear to hear anything that reminds you of your person, and others when hearing something they used to listen to is strangely comforting.
My advice is take it day by day on this one. You might feel like listening to their favourite holiday music, and you might not. If you decide it’s something you want to do, why not gather a few loved ones and turn it into a celebration of their life?
Dance
I will always recommend dancing as therapy for grief. Whether it’s throwing shapes in the club, a solo living room dance party, or — like me — signing up for dance classes.
Dance has been fundamental for my grief journey. Once a week for an hour, I get out of my head and into my body, and I always walk out feeling a noticeable shift in my energy.
Dancing unblocks your whole energetic system, moving stagnant energy and emotions out. It’s also particularly healing for the root chakra, which can help you feel more grounded and secure. Losing a loved one can shake us to our core and make us lose that sense of stability, and dance can help us heal from it.
Finally, dancing reconnects you with your inner child and reminds us that it’s still possible to find moments of joy even as we travel through the depths of grief.
Talk about them
A lot of the time, grieving people push our grief down. It’s messy and inconvenient, it makes people feel uncomfortable, and in a society where it’s still taboo, we don’t know how to talk about our person a lot of the time.
But as the holidays approach, I’ve found myself bringing up my mum with increasing frequency — sometimes just casually mentioning her in conversation, other times talking candidly about my grief, even when people haven’t asked.
I feel a deep need to keep her alive in the minds of others and remind them I’m still dealing with her loss. Because I can’t let the world forget her existence when she was the world to me.
Light a candle to them
In the darkness of midwinter, candlelight represents hope and the promise that the light will return.
The practice of lighting candles in honour of the dead dates back to ancient times and spans many cultures. It symbolises the enduring memory of our loved ones as well as the light they brought to the world.
Write them a letter
One of the worst things about grief is no longer having your special someone to celebrate your highs and commiserate your sorrows.
Many grievers (myself included) reflexively turn to pick up the phone and share the latest news, realising after a split second the person on the other end is no longer there.
Although they won’t be able to read it, writing them a letter to tell them about all your news from the past year can be hugely cathartic.
Ask for support
There’s never any shame in asking for help, but it can be even more important to do so during the holidays when it feels like everyone is celebrating while you’re drowning in a sea of grief.
Reach out to a trusted friend or family member to let them know what’s going on. An empathetic ear and a warm shoulder to cry on can provide the comfort you need at a time of year that is one of the most difficult for grievers.
