One less stocking: coping with grief during the holidays

What do you do with the stocking?

Nobody tells you that’s one of the questions. You open the box of decorations, and there it is. Your husband’s stocking. Your mom’s. The little one with your son’s name stitched across the top in red thread.

Do you hang it? Leave it in the box? Hang it and then take it down at two in the morning because you can’t stand to look at it?

There’s no instruction sheet for that. And it’s only the first of a hundred little decisions the holidays will ask of you this year.

I wonder how many of us are standing over a box of decorations right now, wishing someone would just tell us what to do.

If that’s you, let me say it plainly. Grief during the holidays is one of the hardest parts of losing someone. Not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because this season is built out of memories, and so many of yours have their person in them.

The songs are the same songs. The recipes are the same recipes. The table is the same table. But one chair is empty, and the whole season seems to point right at it.

Maybe you’ve noticed the dread started early, back when the first decorations showed up in the store. Maybe you’ve caught yourself hoping you can just sleep through December. Maybe you feel guilty for not looking forward to Christmas, especially if there are grandkids who still do.

None of that means your faith is weak or your grief is stuck. It means you loved someone, and the calendar knows it.

Grief during the holidays: why it hurts so much

Grief counselors have a name for what happens when a special day comes around. They call it an anniversary reaction. Your heart and body remember, and the old ache comes back strong. Grief during the holidays can catch you off guard, even years later.

What the research shows. The Mayo Clinic says these reactions “aren’t necessarily a setback in the grieving process.” They’re a normal part of it. Holidays, birthdays, and the date your person died can all bring them on, sometimes for days at a time. (Mayo Clinic)

That word normal matters. A lot of people are hard on themselves in December. They expected to be further along by now. But a hard holiday isn’t a sign you’re going backward. It’s a sign this time of year carries a lot of love, and love that has nowhere to go turns into grief.

Keep reading: A song in the grocery store: grief triggers and how to ride the wave

The God who keeps your tears

There’s a little prayer in the book of Psalms that I think every grieving person should know about.

Psalm 56 was written by David, and the heading tells us when: the Philistines had seized him in the city of Gath. He was far from home, surrounded by enemies, and afraid. He wasn’t writing from a quiet chapel. He was writing from the worst week of his life.

And in the middle of that fear, he says this:

“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Psalm 56:8 (ESV)

Read that slowly.

The word David uses for bottle is a skin bottle, a leather pouch people used to carry water or wine. Nobody carries an empty pouch around for no reason. You carry it because what’s inside is precious.

David is saying that God gathers up his tears like that. Not one is lost. Not one is wasted. God even keeps count of his tossings, the restless turning of a man who can’t sleep, wandering from place to place. In Hebrew the two words even sound alike, nodi and nod, as if David is saying, You know my wanderings, so keep my weepings.

Think about what that means at Christmas.

The tears you cry hanging that stocking.

The tears in the car after the candlelight service.

The tears you hide in the bathroom while everyone else opens presents.

God isn’t annoyed by them. He isn’t waiting for you to get over it. He’s gathering them up, like they matter.

Because they do.

You’re allowed to change things this year

Here’s something grief counselors say over and over, and I think it’s one of the kindest things you’ll ever hear: you don’t have to do the holidays the way you’ve always done them.

Cruse, a grief support charity in the United Kingdom, encourages grieving families to plan ahead for how they’ll celebrate, or not celebrate, and to keep the traditions that help and set aside the ones that don’t. They also say something I love: “you may experience a whole range of emotions and none of them are ‘wrong.'” (Cruse Bereavement Support)

So maybe this is the year someone else hosts Thanksgiving. Maybe you skip the big tree and put up a small one. Maybe you go to the early Christmas Eve service instead of the late one, so you can be home before the darkness feels too heavy.

And that stocking? Some families hang it and fill it with notes, each person writing one memory of the one who’s gone. Some leave it in the box this year and try again next year. Grief counselors call it a continuing bond when we find gentle ways to stay connected to someone who has died. There’s no wrong way to do it. There’s only your way, chosen on purpose.

Scripture makes room for this too. Ecclesiastes says there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4, ESV). Some seasons are weeping seasons. That isn’t failure. It’s just honest.

Keep reading: Let them carry it: how to accept help when you’re grieving

A Savior who came into the hurting

Here’s the part of Christmas that I think grieving people understand better than anyone.

Christmas isn’t about a perfect family around a perfect table. It’s about God stepping into a world full of grief. Jesus wasn’t born into comfort. And when He grew up, He stood at His friend Lazarus’s grave and wept, even though He knew what He was about to do. He knew sorrow from the inside.

That’s why your tears are safe with Him. The God who keeps them in His bottle is the same God who wept. He doesn’t stand back from your pain and wait for you to cheer up. He came close, all the way into it. And through His death and resurrection, Jesus made a promise that someday every tear will be wiped away for good.

You don’t have to feel festive to be held by Him this year. You don’t have to have your faith sorted out either. If you’re not sure what you believe about Jesus right now, you’re still welcome to bring Him your tears. If you’ve ever wondered what it would mean to know Him personally, I’d love to share more with you here.

Something to sit with this week

Pick one hard moment you know is coming this season. Maybe it’s opening the decoration box. Maybe it’s the first carol at church. Before it comes, decide one small thing you’ll do to honor your person in that moment, and one person you’ll tell ahead of time. You don’t have to face grief during the holidays alone.

Then, whatever you believe, you’re welcome to borrow this prayer:

Lord, this season hurts. I miss them more than I know how to say. You keep every tear, so here are mine. Hold me through the days I’m dreading, and help me believe I’m not as alone as I feel. Amen.

If you’d like more help walking through the whole season, my book When the Season Hurts goes chapter by chapter through the holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries that are hardest after a loss.

And about that stocking. Hang it or don’t. Fill it with memories or leave it folded in the box. Whatever you choose, you’re not choosing alone. The One who counts your tears is right there with you, holding every single one.

Blessings,

Pastor Howard