Holidays with our children were some of the greatest times of our lives.
So much of our energy, time, and creativity was spent on planning and orchestrating experiences that were fun, memorable and perfect for our family. Even when they didn’t turn out exactly as we had planned, they were wonderful, because we enjoyed the moments together.
Once our children die, we just can’t even imagine facing holidays, and our traditions, without them here with us. Whether it’s decorating the tree, baking the cookies, or wrapping gifts, we soon realize how empty our own holiday season seems, compared to the times we shared with our children.
And it’s not just the “big holidays,” like Christmas or Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, Halloween, or Easter…but also the days that don’t get the same attention, yet, as a family, we may have had special traditions attached…fireworks on the Fourth of July, a camping trip over Labor Day weekend, a long weekend at the shore for Columbus Day, etc.
All of a sudden, the special seasons that we looked forward to are now something we might face with dread. Nothing can ever match the joy of all we shared with our children. All of us probably spend much time, especially in the beginning of our grief journey, wondering how on earth we will ever make it through those special days.
How can we face the holidays now that our children are missing?
How can we survive the feelings of emptiness and dread, as the world around us doesn’t seem to miss a beat with shopping, decorating, playing music, and sending out happy holiday greetings to all?
While we grieve.
While we miss our children in new ways when we reflect on our past holidays.
While our world will never again be the same as it once was…and neither are we.
Just as unique as our own grief journeys, our approach to the holidays has to be something fitting for us. For Dave and myself, we have discovered that our best way to survive the holidays, and any day, is with our children, not without them.
This statement may confuse others around us at first.
And this “new way” of including our children in our holidays, or any day, will never match when they were physically here with us…the time that Dave and I consider the happiest days of our lives.
Although it will never be the same, we choose to include our boys in our approach to every holiday and event. We mention their names, we create new traditions that keep their memories present, and decide which old traditions to keep…and which ones to abandon, or alter.
When it comes to Christmas, we no longer decorate our house as we used to, because our boys were a big part of decorating every room, as well as the outdoors.
We still spend the day after Thanksgiving going to the tree farm to find “the perfect tree.” However, we no longer bring it into our home as we once did, but we take it to the cemetery and place it at our sons’ gravesites. We decorate with sparkly garland, solar lights, and some special ornaments, and we invite friends and families to stop by the tree throughout the season and write a message on an ornament and add it to the tree (we keep a container with ornaments and markers under their bench.)
In our home, we get out their Christmas stockings and hang them up. It surely grabs at our hearts when we remember the special trinkets that we would get to fill them up for our boys to discover on Christmas morning…but now, I set aside time each year to write them each a Christmas letter, fold it up and add it to their stockings.
We have some special books that, as a family, we enjoyed reading together each Christmas. Now, we set them out, hoping that if others see them, they may pick them up and appreciate knowing a little piece of our old holiday traditions, as they rustle through the pages.
We are intentional about keeping our boys names, and memories, a part of our daily conversations. For the winter months, we take strings of blue and white lights and wrap them around the two trees that we’ve planted in our front yard in memory of the boys, and shine them nightly, not only through the holiday season, but throughout the dark winter months. Those who know us, know that it’s one more of our ways of keeping our sons represented, and remembered.
Whether we are welcoming people into our own home, or possibly attending an event at the home of other family members, we have incorporated a tradition of taking a bud vase with two red roses, to place on the table, or a location that seems fitting, that others have begun to realize represent our Dylan and Gavin. At the end of the day, Dave and I will go through the cemetery and put the roses at the boys’ graves. It’s just a part of what has become “our new traditions.”
When we first started these “new traditions,” and even now, it hasn’t (isn’t) easy to openly share with all of our family and friends. Some will always feel uncomfortable whenever we mention Dylan and/or Gavin, but we’ve learned to not stop what is right for us. We begin to realize that, although we’ll always wish that we would never have to “settle for the substitutes” of the wonderful traditions we used to share, it’s the best way for us to keep them present…and a way to help to educate those around us the ways that help us “normalize” the grief that we continue to carry through each holiday…and each ordinary day.
May you all find ways to get through your holiday seasons (and every day) by exploring how you can include your dear children in remembrance and love. As time rolls along, you may realize that even your new traditions must change…and that’s okay.
May you know that, whatever you choose to do, or not do, is what is “right” for you.
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