Lights, carols and cheerful faces everywhere – and inside you, everything is quiet and heavy. When someone you love is missing, the Advent season can become the hardest time of the year.
The very celebrations we used to share make the gap visible: the empty chair at the table, the cookie recipe in her handwriting, the carol he always used to hum.
If this is how you feel, I want to tell you one thing first: Your grief is not a flaw in the Christmas program.
It is love that no longer knows where to go. And it is allowed to be here at Christmas, too.
You Don’t Have to “Function”
Many grieving people feel a double pressure during the holidays: they miss their loved one, and at the same time they want to be strong for everyone else, not spoil the mood, celebrate “normally.” But this year, Christmas doesn’t have to be the way it always was.
You can change traditions, celebrate for a shorter time, leave early or decline an invitation. You can laugh without feeling guilty and cry without explaining yourself. Talk to your family beforehand about what you need and what would be too much. Often, everyone else is relieved when someone speaks first.
Ritual 1: The Remembrance Candle
Place a candle of its own on your Advent wreath or Christmas table for the person who is missing.
You can decorate it with their name or a small symbol. Light it intentionally, perhaps with a sentence like: “You belong with us, today too.”
This candle says something that is sometimes hard to put into words: We haven’t forgotten you.
And it gives everyone at the table permission to think about this person and talk about them.
Ritual 2: A Christmas Letter
Write a letter to the person you miss. Tell them what happened this year, what you would love to show them, what you never got to say. You don’t have to show the letter to anyone. You can keep it, take it to the grave or place it in a small box under the tree.
If you pray, you can also address the letter to God: about your pain, your questions, maybe even your anger.
God can hold words that don’t sound pious. The Psalms are full of lament, and they stand right in the middle of the Bible.
Ritual 3: The Remembrance Ornament
Create a special ornament for the Christmas tree: with a photo, a piece of fabric from their clothing or simply their name. If you celebrate as a family, everyone can write a memory on a small card and hang it on the tree.
This turns the tree into a place where love stays visible.
Ritual 4: Passing It On
Sometimes it helps to give away the love that no longer has a recipient. Cook their favorite meal and share it with someone who is alone. Donate in their name to an organization that mattered to them. Or visit someone who is also lonely at Christmas.
It doesn’t make the pain smaller, but it gives it somewhere to go.
The Light That Comes Into the Darkness
Christmas does not tell the story of a world without darkness.
It tells of a light that comes right into the darkness – into a stable, into a cold night, to people on the margins.
Maybe you can’t celebrate this year. But maybe you can trust that this light comes to you, too – precisely where it is dark.
Support for Your Journey
If you would like to give your grief more room, my journal “God’s Words – The Journal (for Grief & Loss)” can accompany you. It offers questions, prompts and space for everything you feel.
And if the weight becomes too heavy during the holidays, you don’t have to carry it alone. In the US, you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any time, including on Christmas. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are available around the clock at 116 123.
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