The holidays can bring a swirl of emotions — joy, tenderness, memory, gratitude, and sometimes deep fatigue or loneliness. For many of us, this season carries both warmth and weight. Especially for those who have cared deeply, lost deeply, or lived through difficult transitions, December can stir an ache between what once was and what now is.
If this sounds familiar, take a breath. You’re not alone — and you’re not failing the season.
And it’s OK not to be OK and it’s OK to be OK.
My husband Stan’s last Christmas was just one week before he died on New Year’s Eve. I was absolutely not OK. It was chaotic, uncertain, and unpredictable. What I wish I had known then is what I know now: the feelings I was having were not something to fix. They were something to meet with compassion. What I needed most was not reassurance — it was permission to be human.
- Give Yourself Permission to Feel What You Feel
The holidays often magnify contrast — memory and reality, love and loss, presence and absence. Rather than pushing feelings away or judging them, we can practice meeting them with gentleness. When we allow what is true, something inside us softens. Emotional honesty is not weakness. It is a quiet form of courage.
- Redefine Tradition as Presence
Sometimes the old rituals no longer match our current lives. This doesn’t mean we’ve failed the tradition — it means life has changed. Meaning doesn’t live in perfection; it lives in presence. One year, all I could manage were a few small poinsettias from Trader Joe’s. Something alive and red in the room was enough. It was a kind of grace I didn’t even know I was giving myself.
- Remembering Without Clinging
There are holidays that live inside us as “once upon a time” moments. Not fantasies — real chapters we actually lived. We cannot return to them, not because we did something wrong, but because life always changes and moves forward. We can, however, remember them with tenderness rather than longing. We can send gratitude to what was — without needing to recreate it. That kind of remembering strengthens the heart without pulling us backward.
A Gentle Pause
Notice what’s stirring within you — longing, gratitude, fatigue, grief, or all of it at once. There is no right way to feel here.
If you wish, open your journal and write about anything that comes up for you around this holiday. I use the prompt: What Matters Most RIGHT NOW.
Journaling Circle Invitation
We’re not having a Journaling Journeys Circle in December but I hope the work we’ve done together will help you to stay present when the holidays stir both sorrow and celebration
When we return in the new year, we’ll write, reflect, experience a brief guided inner journey, and share if we wish.