Coping During Holidays

Single Bells

Sister Mauryeen O'Brien, grief specialist, shares some coping strategies for single parents as they face the holiday season. She provides simple ideas for keeping the holidays simple.

Holiday Healing

Looking for something different for the holidays? Do you need a gift to soothe your grief? Tony Falzano, writer, songwriter and grief specialist, shares information about how music can help those who are grieving and provides insight to a new website that distributes healing music, music for meditation and relaxation.

Unhappy Holidays

Susan Smith, author and editor, shares interviews with grief experts on how to cope with the holidays after a loved one has died. She shares ideas for making the holidays easier to face and provides coping strategies that will help you find hope as you enter the new year.

Will I Always Feel This Bad?

When someone you love has died, the holidays are hard. Not only are you grieving the person who has died, but you are also grieving the loss of the holiday and how you shared it with that person. How you celebrate will never be the same. But, Sherry Williams White, grief specialist, explains how that doesn't mean that the holidays can't have meaning again. She teaches you how you can incorporate the memory of your loved one into new rituals and traditions you can celebrate this year and many years to come. With simple concrete suggestions, you will learn how to take control of special days and holidays.

The Christmas Tablecloth

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve.

Not Just Another Day

Sherry Williams White, nurse, writer and grief specialist, shares some ideas for handling those special days that you once shared with your loved one. She explains how important it is to trust your heart and honor your feelings.

Help for the Holidays

Sherry Williams White, nurse, writer and grief specialist, shares ten simple ideas for making the holidays easier when you have had a loved one die. You will get permission to say no and discover ways to simplify so you can preserve your energy. Grief is hard work and it can seem even harder when the holidays arrive.

What's So Happy About the Holidays?

If someone you love has died, you may be surprised at how you feel about upcoming holidays or special days. Observances that used to be fun-filled may be overshadowed by anxiety, apprehension and sadness. Sherry Williams White uses her years of experience in working with grieving individuals to explain why grief seems more intense during the hoilidays and what you can do to have more control of the season. She shares ideas for including the memory of your loved one in holiday celebrations by creating new rituals and traditions for the future.

Hope for the Holidays

It's about this time of the year that holiday decorations appear on the store shelves, radios play seasonal songs and people make plans to be together for those special days. But for many of us, these supposedly happy events bring on intense feelings of loneliness, emptiness, despair and fear. Being unsure how to cope with our changed lives during the holidays ahead can be frightening.

Holidays: A Survival Guide

As if each ordinary day isn't difficult and painful enough for the bereaved to survive, along comes the holiday season with its warmth and good cheer and its traditions and customs of family togetherness. The holidays can bring a stinging reminder of what once was but never will be again.

Holidays are Hard Days

The holidays are difficult for all of us but when a loved one has died, the emotions of grief and the emotions tied to the holidays can be overwhelming. Susan Smith, editor and writer shares interviews with two grief specialists and provides suggestions for surviving the holidays when a loved one has died.

What Happens After Christmas

Sister Mauryeen O'Brien explains how we can adapt to life after the death of a loved one and how we can face the cold world of winter after the Holidays are over. Here's an excerpt from here story: "What happens after Christmas?" We can begin to listen to those around us who are eager to reach out and help us begin our healing process. We can match our pace to that of the nature that surrounds us: quiet, restful, not rushed, waiting expectantly for a sign of growth and beauty. "What happens after Christmas?" We can take the time to once again "know that He is God... " He has the capacity to allow nature to not only survive winter after winter but to grow from the cold and dreary months. Has He not also the capacity to do the same for us who are indeed His most precious children?

Holiday Survivorship Skills

The holidays are a traditional time of joy and laughter, sparkle and glitter, sharing and gift-giving, But for people who are grieving, the holidays may seem inappropriate, affronting, and painful. The holidays may be a time of mixed emotions, feelings of being overwhelmed with multiple demands, and the pain of loves lost. As the holidays approach, think about how you can take care of yourself during this vulnerable time.

Children, Loss and the Holidays

Since they are dealing with so many changes, be sure to tell your children you will, in fact, be celebrating the holidays. This assurance offers a child the security he or she needs to understand that not all in life will be altered because of the death of a parent, sibling or other special person. Early in the season, ask for feedback from ALL family members regarding the alteration or continuance of family holiday traditions.