When your holiday traditions die too

What happens when the person who keeps your holiday traditions alive dies? When my mom died, our Christmas died with her. It was years before I felt like Christmas was safe again, I mean almost 20 years. It wasn’t until Meg and I had our our first daughter that I felt like Christmas was something I could actually look forward to. Up until then, I dreaded the holidays every year.

The first Christmas without my mom was six months after she died. It was my version of hell on earth - screaming, fighting, crying, chaos. The grief was so total that none of us could cope and yet we felt compelled to do fake it through. I still don’t understand why we even bothered. We should have canceled Christmas, told everyone we knew we couldn’t do it, couldn’t bare it. We drowned in our grief and instead of trying to comfort one another, we crumbled. Without my mom, Christmas was dead.

I miss the traditions that she brought to life every year - the parties she threw with abandon, the lights, the music, the house filled with food, people and laughter. I miss her beauty, the way her face lit up at the holidays. It was an incredibly stressful time of year because she did everything, and I got pulled into the prep work every year. But when the time came for our guests to arrive, she was the most incredible hostess, gracious, loving and fun. She made everyone feel welcome and included in the fun.

The next morning she’d wake up, hung over and exhausted, and do it all again. Christmas morning was my favourite - she LOVED giving gifts, it was definitely her love language. The joy that giving us gifts brought her was so palpable, I can still feel her happiness.

I want her to know that I’m trying to bring back our traditions after all of these years of dreading the holidays - the stockings that we put oranges at the bottom of, the special Santa wrapping paper, the house full of lights and music and the real Christmas tree that we lovingly decorate with sentimental ornaments. Over the years of being a parent, I’ve tried to bring some of my childhood Christmas traditions into our family’s holidays because I grieve that they were lost for so long. I grieve that she won’t open gifts with my children on Christmas morning. I grieve that she won’t spoil them with her love. I grieve that I haven’t seen her Christmas joy in so many years. I try to see her joy on my girls’ faces now. They don’t know their grandmother but I hope that they can feel her joy for the holidays through me.

Janet’s family Christmas tree, December 2022.