Grief at Christmas: Why This Time of Year Can Feel So Hard and How to Get Through It

Christmas is often described as a time of joy, connection, and celebration. When you are grieving the death of someone you love, however, the holiday season can feel very different.

Familiar traditions, family gatherings, music, and celebrations can bring memories of the person who is missing. A season that once felt comforting may instead leave you feeling sad, anxious, lonely, overwhelmed, or emotionally exhausted.

Research on bereavement suggests that significant dates and occasions can bring grief into sharper focus for some people. Anniversary reactions may involve emotional, physical, or behavioural responses, and can occur around death anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and other meaningful occasions. At the same time, these reactions are not universal. People experience them differently depending on their relationship with the person who died, the circumstances of the death, their support systems, and many other factors (Leaune et al., 2025).

At Authentic Living London, we understand how tender the holidays can become after a loss. Knowing what may be happening can make it easier to approach yourself with compassion rather than expecting yourself to experience Christmas the way you did before.

Why Christmas Can Be Difficult When You Are Grieving

Christmas is connected to memories

Holidays often involve traditions that have been repeated for years. Those traditions can carry strong emotional associations with the people who were part of them.

A particular song, recipe, ornament, family gathering, or familiar place may suddenly bring your loved one to mind. The resulting emotions can be comforting, painful, or both at once.

Research into bereavement anniversaries supports the idea that meaningful dates and occasions can trigger renewed emotional or physical responses connected to a loss. These reactions can occur even when the person has been grieving for many years (Leaune et al., 2025).

Holiday expectations can add pressure

Christmas can come with strong expectations about family, happiness, togetherness, and celebration. When your internal experience does not match those expectations, you may wonder why you cannot simply enjoy the holiday.

There is no requirement for grief to follow the emotional tone of the season.

You might experience sadness alongside laughter. You may enjoy parts of the day and struggle with others. Feeling moments of happiness does not mean you have forgotten the person who died, just as feeling devastated does not mean you are failing to cope.

The absence can feel particularly noticeable

The holidays can make changes in family life more visible.

An empty chair at the table, a tradition that no longer happens, or a person who would normally have called can make the reality of the loss feel especially immediate. For some bereaved people, this contrast between how Christmas used to feel and how it feels now can be painful.

Research involving bereaved spouses has found that certain meaningful occasions can be associated with increased grief and psychological distress, although these effects vary and are not experienced consistently by everyone (Nielsen et al., 2017).

The first Christmas can bring particular challenges

The first Christmas after a death can involve many unfamiliar experiences. You may be discovering, for the first time, how a particular tradition feels without your loved one or how your family will celebrate differently.

That does not mean every person experiences the first holiday as the hardest. Grief does not follow a predictable schedule, and later Christmases can bring unexpected waves of emotion too.

How to Get Through Christmas When You Are Grieving

Give yourself permission to have your own experience

You do not need to manufacture happiness because it is Christmas.

Grief can include sadness, anger, longing, guilt, anxiety, numbness, relief, gratitude, and moments of genuine enjoyment. There may be no single emotion that accurately describes your experience.

Rather than judging your reactions, try to notice what you are feeling and give yourself some room to respond to it.

Decide which traditions you want to keep

You are allowed to change Christmas after a loss.

A familiar tradition may provide comfort and continuity. Another may feel too painful to repeat. You might continue certain rituals while changing others.

There is no requirement to recreate the holiday exactly as it was before the death.

The most supportive choice may be the one that gives you enough emotional space to get through the season without overwhelming yourself.

Create a meaningful way to remember your loved one

Rituals can provide a way to acknowledge a person's continuing significance after death.

You might light a candle, prepare a favourite recipe, hang a meaningful ornament, visit a special place, look through photographs, or share a story with someone who knew your loved one.

Research examining rituals in grief interventions has identified a range of approaches, including symbolic expression, writing, dialogue, and other forms of remembrance. While the evidence does not mean that any particular ritual will help everyone, rituals can provide structure and opportunities for meaning-making within grief (Wojtkowiak et al., 2021).

Lower the pressure

Grief can make ordinary responsibilities more demanding.

You do not have to attend every gathering, cook every meal, or maintain every tradition. Simplifying your plans can give you more emotional and physical capacity for what matters most.

Saying no to something that feels overwhelming is not a rejection of your family or the holiday. It may simply be an appropriate response to what you have the capacity for right now.

Have a plan for gatherings

If you decide to attend a Christmas gathering, consider what would help you feel more comfortable.

You might arrange your own transportation, let someone know that you may need a break, identify a quiet place where you can step away, or give yourself permission to leave earlier than planned.

Having options can make a gathering feel less like something you have to endure and more like something you can participate in according to your own limits.

Tell people what you need

Friends and family members may want to support you but may not know how.

Being specific can help. You might tell someone that you would appreciate company, that you may become emotional, or that you would rather not discuss the details of your loss that day.

Social support is an important part of coping with bereavement. Research has found associations between social support and better psychological wellbeing following loss, although the type and quality of support matter (Logan et al., 2018; Scott et al., 2020).

You do not need to explain everything. Letting one trusted person know what would make the season easier can be enough.

Take care of your physical needs

Grief affects the whole person, not just your emotions. Sleep, appetite, concentration, energy, and physical wellbeing can all be affected during bereavement.

Basic care can become particularly important during demanding periods. Eating regularly, staying hydrated, getting adequate rest, and incorporating gentle movement when you can may help support your overall wellbeing.

Self-care does not remove grief. It gives your body and mind some of the resources needed to carry it (McAdam & Erikson, 2020).

You Do Not Have to Get Through Christmas Alone

There is no prize for managing grief without support.

Talking with a therapist can give you somewhere to acknowledge the parts of Christmas that feel painful without having to reassure other people or make your experience easier for them.

Professional support can be particularly valuable when grief is accompanied by persistent depression, significant anxiety, trauma symptoms, isolation, or difficulty functioning. Research suggests that bereavement interventions can be helpful, particularly for people experiencing more significant or complicated grief-related difficulties, although not every intervention is equally effective for every person (Lundorff et al., 2025).

At Authentic Living London, our therapists provide a compassionate, non-judgmental space to explore grief and the many emotions that can accompany it. You do not need to have a particular goal for therapy or know exactly what you need before reaching out.

You Are Not Failing at Christmas

If Christmas feels different after a loss, it does not mean you are doing anything wrong.

The holidays may bring beautiful memories alongside painful ones. You may want to participate fully, keep things very simple, or find a completely different way of marking the season. Your needs may also change from one year to the next.

Grief reflects the significance of the relationship you lost. There is nothing strange about missing someone during a season that contains so many reminders of them.

You do not have to make Christmas joyful. You do not have to make it meaningful. You simply deserve enough compassion and support to move through it in a way that feels manageable.

If you are struggling with grief this Christmas, you do not have to carry it alone. At Authentic Living London, we can provide a safe space to talk about what you are experiencing and help you find ways to navigate the holidays while continuing to honour your loss.

References

Leaune, E., Lau-Taï, P., & Pitman, A. (2025). The phenomenon of bereavement anniversary reactions: An integrative systematic review. Death Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2513997

Logan, E. L., Thornton, J. A., & Breen, L. J. (2018). What determines supportive behaviors following bereavement? A systematic review and call to action. Death Studies, 42(2), 104–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2017.1329760

Lundorff, M., et al. (2025). The efficacy of bereavement interventions: A systematic umbrella review. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

McAdam, J. L., & Erikson, A. (2020). Self-care in the bereavement process. Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America, 32(3), 421–437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnc.2020.05.005

Nielsen, M. K., Neergaard, M. A., Jensen, A. B., Bro, F., & Guldin, M. B. (2017). Do special occasions trigger psychological distress among older bereaved spouses? An empirical assessment of clinical wisdom. Death Studies.

Scott, H. R., et al. (2020). A systematic review of studies describing the influence of informal social support on psychological wellbeing in people bereaved by sudden or violent causes of death. BMC Psychiatry.

Wojtkowiak, J., Lind, J., & Smid, G. E. (2021). Ritual in therapy for prolonged grief: A scoping review of ritual elements in evidence-informed grief interventions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 623835. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.623835