The first Christmas without a loved one

The festive season amplifies every absence. The empty chair at Christmas dinner hurts more than any Tuesday in February, and knowing that in advance helps you prepare.

Talk about it beforehand

The biggest mistake is for each member of the family to suffer alone while pretending everything is normal. A few days before, have a simple conversation: do we celebrate as usual, differently, or not at all? Who dares take on their signature dish? Do we want to mention them at dinner, or would we rather not? There is no right answer; there is your answer.

Give them a place

What goes unnamed weighs more. Many families find relief in giving the person an explicit place:

• A toast to them as the meal begins.
• A candle lit at their place at the table — or on their memorial, where those celebrating far away can light one too.
• Cooking their recipe “the way she made it”, even though it never turns out the same. It never does, and you laugh about it — and laughing and crying at once is exactly what grief well lived looks like.

Permission for everything

• Permission to cry in the middle of the Christmas pudding, and to enjoy yourself without guilt: enjoying it is not a betrayal.
• Permission to leave early, or not to go at all. In the first year, getting through the season is achievement enough.
• Permission to change the scenery: some families spend that year's dinner at a different house, or go away altogether — and it saves them.

With children

Children need the celebration to go on existing. You can protect their excitement and still include the remembering: let them hang “his” bauble on the tree, or choose the photo of Grandad for the table. That way they learn the most important lesson of all: that you can love someone who is gone and still celebrate life.