Grief at Christmas and on the first anniversaries

The first year after a death is hard because every date in it is a first, and the dates with a name, Christmas, a birthday, the anniversary of the death itself, are the hardest. Almost everyone dreads them, and almost everyone says afterwards that the dread was worse than the day. This guide is how to get through each, and the one decision that helps more than any other.

Why these days are hard

Because they are days built around the person. Christmas has an empty chair at a table they set. A birthday is theirs and there is no one to give the present to. The anniversary is the day the world changed, and the mind marks it whether you want it to or not. And because everyone else is celebrating, the contrast is cruel in a way an ordinary Tuesday is not.

Why the dread is worse than the day

The weeks before are spent imagining the day, and the imagination is worse than most days turn out to be. Families tell us that the actual Christmas was quiet and sad and shorter than feared, and that the fortnight before it was the hard part. Knowing that does not stop the dread, but it helps to know that the dread is the bulk of it.

The one decision

Decide, in advance, what you will do, and tell the people it affects. The options are roughly three.

The same as always. The same table, the same food, the same people, with the person missing and named. Some families find the routine holds them up. If you do this, plan who does the things the person used to do, so that nobody discovers on the morning that Mum was the only one who knew how to do the turkey.

Something different. A different house, a restaurant, a walk instead of a lunch, a trip away. Some families find that changing everything means there is no empty chair to look at. It is not disloyalty; it is a different kind of remembering, and it can be changed back next year.

Not at all. Cancelling Christmas, or ignoring the birthday, or treating the anniversary as an ordinary day. Fewer families choose this and it is legitimate, particularly in the first year. Say so to the relatives who will otherwise turn up.

Any of the three works. What does not work is having no plan and discovering on the morning that the family has three different expectations.

Include the person

Whichever you choose, families find it easier to name the person than to avoid them: a toast, a candle, their favourite dish, a photograph on the table, a visit to the grave or the place the ashes are, a story each. The silence around the person’s name is what makes the day unbearable, not the name itself. Children often lead this, and a child suggesting that Grandad would have hated the sprouts is usually what breaks the tension.

The anniversary of the death

Plan something, however small: a walk to a place, flowers, a visit, a meal with one or two people, or a day off work spent alone if that is what you want. Families often find the days before worse than the day, and the day itself quiet. For many people the second anniversary is less of a cliff than the first, though Cruse is honest that some find the second year harder, because everyone around them has stopped asking; the day never becomes nothing, and in time it stops being a cliff.

Their birthday

The odd one, because there is no ritual for it. Some families keep it, with a cake and the person’s name; some let it pass and mark it privately. The first one often catches people out because they had not thought of it as a date. Put it in the diary now, so that it is a day you planned for and not a day you were ambushed by.

Looking after yourself on the day

Eat, even a little. Go outside, even briefly. Leave early if you need to, and say in advance that you might. Do not drink to get through it, because it works until three o’clock and then it does not. And let the day be sad; a sad Christmas is not a failed one.

If the funeral was far away

Many of the families we work with are marking a first Christmas for someone whose funeral was in another country, and who they may not have been able to bury. That is its own weight, and grieving far from home is written for it. How long does grief last sets these days inside the whole of the first year, and coping with grief in the first weeks is for the December when the death was only weeks ago.