The weeks leading up to the December holidays often carry an unspoken script: celebration, togetherness, warmth, and cheer. Shops fill with colour, lights appear in windows, and the cultural pace quickens in anticipation of something joyful.

But the hidden truth is that for many, this time of year is deeply challenging. It brings up family strain, financial pressure, loneliness, and emotional triggers — even without bereavement. For someone grieving a recent loss, especially during the first year, the season can feel unbearably dissonant.

The holidays are hard for many — but they can feel almost impossible when it is your first year of grief. This reality lives quietly beneath glitter and marketing.

Every shop playing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” can feel like a wound being touched again and again — a reminder that "You Are Not Here and You Are Never Coming Back.

Even adverts can feel cruel — insisting that joy is mandatory and universally available.

For the grieving person, there is often a sense of being out of sync with the human world. During the holidays it is more pronounced, as everyone seems to be moving forward while inside, something remains shattered.

The Empty Chair and the Question No One Says Aloud

One of the most common experiences people share about the first holiday after a death is the hovering sense of something missing. It may show up as:

• A chair left empty at the table
• The absence of a voice that always carved the turkey or lit the candle
• An instinctive thought: “I must tell them this…” — followed by the collision with reality

These moments are not small. They tear open the surface of ordinary time.
More than anything, they remind us that grief is love with nowhere to land.

Sometimes the ache is loud — a crying spell at the dinner table, a bout of rage, screaming at your child for no good reason,  Other times it is quiet — food that tastes like nothing, gifts that feel meaningless or a numbness that makes you wonder what's the point of it all.

Both are grief.
Both are intelligent responses to loss.

Grief as Identity Change

Many people are surprised to discover that grief is not just emotional — it is existential.

When someone we love dies, we don’t only lose them.

We lose the version of ourselves that existed in their presence.

Roles shift. Meaning collapses. Identity reorganises itself around absence.

For some, the holidays were always about being “the host,” “the sibling,” “the child who came home.” What happens when those roles no longer fit? or when the person, or for some, the pet, who brought out the better version of you is no longer here?

This is why grief can feel like a crisis of meaning.

Grief is not only about what we lost — it is also about what will never be. We grieve the future that will not unfold. The story that will not be told.

The holidays often magnify that ache.

The Nervous System in December

From a somatic lens, the first holiday season often brings a surge in dysregulation. Memory cues — scents, songs, tastes, family dynamics — trigger emotional and physiological responses before the thinking mind catches up.

The body says: “I am trying to adapt to a world where the person I love is gone.”

The Pressure to “Do It Right”

The festive season comes with strict emotional expectations:

• Show up
  • Smile
  • Be grateful
  • Keep traditions alive

But grief is not a performance. Nor it is a problem to solve. Grief is not something we “get over.” but a sacred response to love interrupted.

There is no correct way to mourn. There is only the most compassionate possible way for you, this year, in this body. And you do not owe anyone a polished emotional presentation.

If you want to be alone, that is not failure.
If you want company, that is not weakness.
If you want to change every tradition this year, that is not disloyalty.
If you want to keep them all exactly the same, that is not denial.

Ritual as a Lantern in the Dark

Large celebrations may feel impossible. Small rituals can still offer anchoring:

• Light a candle beside a photo
  • Cook one dish they loved and eat it quietly
  • Write them a holiday card and keep it somewhere safe
  • Place a symbolic object at the table

These are not sentimental touches. They are ways of regulating the nervous system.
Ritual bridges worlds: the inner world of memory and the outer world that keeps moving.

It says:

“Love surpasses death. This love mattered. It still matters.”

The Way We Grieve — Is By Grieving.

If this is your first Holiday season after loss

• You are not expected to be festive.
• You do not have to pretend.
• Your grief is not an inconvenience.

You may feel fragile, angry, unrecognisable, strangely functional, or completely undone. All of these are legitimate expressions of love. If you feel a wave of grief rising, let it in, even if it feels frightening. Don’t try to stop it. Allow it to move, to be witnessed, to have space. It’s okay to cry, to rage, to ask “why me?” — even to throw something soft. Some grief needs movement. Some grief needs sound.

Gentle Practices That May Help

• Spend a few minutes in quiet each day, without needing to achieve anything
  • Try "box breathing" or "polyvagal breathing" to steady your nervous system
  • Press your feet into the floor: “The earth is holding me. I don’t have to hold everything alone.”
  • Hug a teddy bear, cuddle your dog, wrap yourself in a blanket and hold it tight
  • Have one simple ritual — a candle, a photo, a song
  • Decline invitations that feel too hard on your heart or body
  • Seek the company of one person who can sit with you without fixing

Somatic regulation isn’t about numbing grief or making it disappear.

It gives your body enough safety to feel what is already inside you, without breaking.

When we push grief down, it comes out sideways — as anxiety, shutdown, over drinking, self-harm, or hurting the people we love. Grief will always find an outlet. Giving it space is an act of care, not avoidance.

If you need support, reach for it.

You deserve support not because there is something wrong with you —
but because you are human, and love leaves footprints.

May the weeks ahead offer you moments of softness, warmth where possible, and the quiet recognition that you do not walk this landscape alone.

With care,
Adva