5.7.4 Coping with the Holidays
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For those who are grieving, coping with the holidays is no small task. These suggestions will help to make your grief a little easier and your holiday season a little lighter.
Be with those who comfort you
Share your thoughts with someone you trust and are comfortable talking to. Trying to ignore the absence of a loved one can make you feel alone and depressed.
Acknowledge and accept your feelings
The holidays magnify our feelings of loneliness, bitterness, anger, frustration and depression. All of the emotions you experience in grief are natural reactions to the death of a loved one. Don’t feel pressured to be joyful and celebrate; these may not be the feelings you are experiencing. However, don’t feel guilty if you do enjoy yourself.
Remember
Include your loved one’s name in conversation and share your memories. Remember the good times as well as the bad. Remembering is a very healthy and healing experience. You can laugh and cry as you remember times spent together.
Eliminate unnecessary stress
Don’t do anything that is extremely uncomfortable for you. If you don’t feel like putting up decorations, buying presents and going to places of worship, then don’t do it. Keeping busy only increases stress and postpones working through grief. Lower your expectations for the holidays and do what you can when you can.
Plan ahead
Make plans for the holidays, even if the plans have to change. It is more beneficial to plan than to just let it happen. You may choose to celebrate as usual, or you may:
- Change the time of eating your traditional dinner.
- Change the room to eat dinner in.
- Go out for dinner to a restaurant or accept an invitation to someone’s house.
- Change the menu from the usual (ex. cook ham instead of turkey).
- Go to your place of worship at a different time or in a different location than you usually do.
- Change the type and size of your holiday decorations and put them in a different spot in the house.
- Change the time that you usually open presents.
Tears are not a sign of weakness, foolishness or lack of faith.
– Rev. Dale Turner
Tears are evidence of the capacity to care.
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You are welcome to download and save a local copy of this document in the Word and/or PDF formats provided. As the POGO Satellite Manual is subject to ongoing revisions and updates by POGO, we recommend you regularly check the online version posted at https://www.pogo.ca/satellite-manual/ to ensure you have the most up-to-date content. In the event of any inconsistency between the content of a local copy and the online version of the POGO Satellite Manual, the content of the online version shall be considered correct. Please see also the POGO Satellite Manual Disclaimer.
Record of Updates
| Version Number | Date of Effect | Summary of Revisions |
| 1 | 8/24/2021 | Original version posted. |