The empty chair, the familiar traditions, and why certain memories can make the holidays especially painful.
The holidays have a way of making absence feel impossible to ignore.
Maybe it's the empty chair at Thanksgiving dinner. A familiar recipe you haven't made since your mother died. A Christmas ornament that belonged to your father. Or the realization that, for the first time, someone who was always part of your holiday traditions won't be there.
Sometimes the grief arrives before the holiday itself.
You might be doing perfectly well on an ordinary Tuesday when a familiar song plays in a store, or someone asks what you're doing for Thanksgiving, and suddenly the loss feels immediate again.
Perhaps it's been six months. Perhaps it's been six years.
You may have built a meaningful life around the absence. You may have returned to work, formed new relationships, and experienced genuine happiness.
And still, the holidays hurt.
Why does grief sometimes feel more intense during the holidays, even when you've made significant progress in healing?
Because grief isn't simply about the passage of time. It's also about the relationships, memories, routines, and expectations that give certain moments their emotional meaning.
Why the Holidays Can Intensify Grief
Holidays are filled with reminders.
The same foods. The same decorations. The same gatherings. The same conversations about who is coming, where everyone will sit, and what traditions will continue.
These familiar rituals can provide comfort, but they can also highlight how much has changed.
When someone important dies, we don't lose only their physical presence. We may also lose the routines, roles, and shared experiences that made our relationship part of everyday life.
A daughter may miss calling her mother for advice about Thanksgiving dinner. A spouse may find that decorating the house feels meaningless without their partner. A parent may struggle with traditions that once centered on a child who has died.
The holidays can bring these secondary losses into sharper focus.
Sometimes what hurts most isn't one particular memory. It's the recognition that the future you imagined will look different.
Why Grief Can Return Years After Someone Dies
One of the most common misconceptions about grief is that it should steadily diminish with time.
People often imagine healing as a gradual progression from intense sadness to acceptance, with fewer difficult moments along the way.
But grief rarely follows such a predictable course.
You can feel relatively peaceful about a loss for months and then experience a powerful wave of sadness on an anniversary, birthday, or holiday.
This doesn't necessarily mean you've stopped healing.
Grief can become more noticeable when circumstances draw your attention back to the relationship or the life you shared.
A holiday may remind you of a particular person more intensely than an ordinary day because so many of its traditions were connected to them.
You may also grieve differently as your life changes.
A woman who lost her mother years ago may experience renewed sadness when she becomes a mother herself. Someone who lost a spouse may feel the absence differently when attending a family wedding or celebrating a milestone.
The relationship continues to matter, even as life moves forward.
The First Holiday After a Death
The first holiday season following a death can feel especially uncertain.
You may not know what you want.
Should you keep the traditions exactly as they were? Change everything? Stay home? Travel? Attend the usual family gathering?
Other people may have strong opinions about what would be best.
Some may insist that maintaining traditions will be comforting. Others may encourage you to do something completely different.
But grief is personal, and the traditions that comfort one person may feel unbearable to another.
You may discover that you want to make your loved one's favorite meal but cannot bear to sit at the usual table.
Or you may want to avoid the holiday entirely.
There is no requirement to make the first holiday meaningful, beautiful, or healing.
Sometimes getting through it is enough.
When Holiday Grief Includes Painful Memories
Not every memory associated with a loss is comforting.
You may remember the final days of someone's illness, the moment you learned they had died, or a particularly distressing experience surrounding their death.
Perhaps you were present during a medical emergency. Maybe you witnessed someone you love suffering. Or perhaps you carry guilt about a conversation you wish had gone differently.
During the holidays, those painful memories can become intertwined with the sadness of missing the person.
Instead of remembering a joyful family gathering, you may find yourself repeatedly thinking about the hospital room.
Instead of recalling the relationship as a whole, your mind may return to its most distressing moments.
This can make grief feel especially difficult.
It's important to distinguish between the natural pain of missing someone and distress connected to particular memories of what happened.
Both deserve care, but they may benefit from different therapeutic approaches.
Why Understanding Your Grief Doesn't Always Relieve the Pain
Many people who seek therapy for grief already understand their loss.
They know why they're sad. They recognize how important the relationship was. They may have spent months or years talking about their feelings.
And those conversations can be deeply valuable.
But sometimes a particular memory remains emotionally overwhelming despite that understanding.
Someone may know that they did everything possible for a dying parent and still experience intense guilt when remembering the final days.
Another person may understand that a death was unavoidable but continue to feel panic when recalling the moment they received the news.
In these situations, insight may not fully address the distress associated with the memory itself.
That doesn't mean traditional grief counseling has failed. It may mean that an additional, more targeted approach could be useful.
Can Accelerated Resolution Therapy Help With Grief?
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a structured psychotherapy that uses guided eye movements, imagery, and other techniques to help people process distressing experiences.
For some grieving individuals, ART may be appropriate when a specific memory associated with the loss continues to evoke significant emotional distress.
Treatment might focus on the memory of a loved one's suffering, a frightening medical event, or an upsetting moment surrounding the death.
The intention is not to eliminate sadness, erase memories, or diminish the importance of the relationship.
Instead, the work aims to reduce the distress associated with particular experiences so they may become easier to remember without the same intensity of emotional activation.
Research on ART has shown promising preliminary findings for trauma-related symptoms, but evidence specifically establishing its effectiveness for grief is limited. It should not be presented as a proven single-session treatment for bereavement.
An individualized assessment is important to determine whether ART, EMDR, grief-focused psychotherapy, or another approach would be appropriate.
Is It Possible to Feel Better Without Letting Go?
For some people, this is one of the most difficult questions.
They worry that if the pain becomes less intense, it will mean they're forgetting the person they lost.
The grief may feel like one of the few remaining connections to someone who mattered enormously.
But love and suffering are not the same thing.
You can continue to love someone, remember them, miss them, and honor their place in your life without every memory feeling unbearable.
The goal of grief treatment is not to make the person less important.
It's to help you find a way to carry the relationship and the loss that allows room for the rest of your life.
How to Navigate the Holidays When You're Grieving
Give Yourself Permission to Change Traditions
You don't have to recreate every holiday exactly as it was.
You can keep the traditions that feel meaningful, modify the ones that have become painful, and set aside others entirely.
There is no deadline for deciding what your holidays should look like now.
Make a Plan, but Allow Yourself to Change It
You may feel comfortable accepting an invitation today and feel differently when the holiday arrives.
Where possible, give yourself flexibility.
You can attend for an hour rather than the entire day. You can leave early. You can decide that a quiet evening at home is what you need.
Remember Your Loved One in a Way That Feels Right
Some people find comfort in lighting a candle, preparing a favorite food, sharing stories, or incorporating a meaningful object into the gathering.
Others prefer private remembrance.
Neither approach is more loving or more psychologically healthy.
Be Clear About What Support Would Help
Friends and family may want to help but not know what to say.
You might ask someone to mention your loved one's name, invite you for a walk, or simply sit with you without trying to make the sadness disappear.
Support doesn't always require advice.
Recognize When Grief May Need Additional Attention
Grief can be intensely painful without being a mental health disorder.
However, persistent, pervasive yearning or preoccupation with the deceased, substantial difficulty functioning, and other symptoms may warrant assessment for prolonged grief disorder or related concerns.
A qualified mental health professional can help distinguish between expected grief responses and difficulties that may benefit from specialized treatment.
Frequently Asked Questions About Holiday Grief
Why is grief worse during the holidays?
Holidays often involve traditions, relationships, and memories closely associated with the person who died. These reminders can intensify feelings of absence and longing, even years after a loss.
Is it normal to cry during the holidays years after losing someone?
Yes. Grief can become more noticeable during anniversaries, holidays, and important milestones. Experiencing sadness years later does not automatically mean that something is wrong or that healing has stopped.
Should I keep holiday traditions after someone dies?
There is no single correct approach. Some people find familiar traditions comforting, while others prefer to change them. You can make decisions based on what feels manageable and meaningful.
Can therapy help with grief even if I've already talked about it?
Yes. Therapy may help with ongoing grief, relationship changes, difficult emotions, or distressing memories associated with a death. Different concerns may call for different therapeutic approaches.
Can ART help with painful memories surrounding a death?
ART may be considered for specific distressing memories, although research directly examining ART for grief remains limited. Clinical assessment is needed to determine whether it is appropriate.
Does healing from grief mean forgetting someone?
No. Healing does not require forgetting the person, ending your connection to them, or no longer feeling sadness. Many people continue to maintain meaningful emotional bonds with loved ones who have died.
You Can Miss Someone and Still Make Room for Your Life
The holidays may never feel exactly the same after someone important dies.
And perhaps they shouldn't.
That person was part of your life. Their presence mattered. Their absence matters, too.
But if the memories surrounding the loss continue to feel overwhelming, you don't necessarily have to endure that distress without support.
There may be ways to address the most painful aspects of what happened while preserving the love, connection, and memories you want to carry forward.
Laura Geftman, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 20 years of experience and advanced training in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), EMDR, and Internal Family Systems (IFS). She offers individualized psychotherapy and focused treatment for grief, trauma, and distressing life experiences.
Virtual services are available to clients physically located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
If grief feels especially difficult this holiday season, you don't have to wait until January to seek support.
Email Laura directly at laura.geftman@gmail.com for a consultation or visit laurageftman.com to schedule an evaluation and discuss whether focused treatment may be appropriate for you.