14 Ways to Remember a Loved One During the Holidays

Holiday time can be especially hard when you’ve lost someone special in your life. Whether the loss is recent, or it happened some time back, holiday celebrations can heighten grief and intensify our mourning.

If you’re seeking remembrance of your loved one during these special times, here are 14 ways to honor them—alone and with others.

1. Share memorable or funny stories with family and friends gathered. Ask others to share as well.
2. Start the ritual of creating a favorite dish of your loved one for the holiday table.
3. Talk about them online in social media posts on a platform that is a comforting, supportive place.
4. Take on unfinished projects they left behind and finish them. Whether a craft project, memoir, or photo album, you could tackle this alone or ask others to participate.
5. If your loved one volunteered their time, continue their service or volunteer in their memory for an organization that had meaning for them.
6. Choose a few special items of your loved one you can part with and give them to others who would cherish them.
7. Spend some time alone, or with others, experiencing your loved one’s favorite activities. This could be through recreating recipes, watching a movie, visiting a museum or garden, or listening to music.
8. If you have the funds, develop a grant or scholarship in their memory that relates to things they were passionate about.
9. Have something new fashioned from something old. Find an article that belonged to the person gone and turn it into something new to be loved. This could be made into a piece of jewelry, a collage shadow box, side table, or a quilt from clothes.
10. Light a candle at your holiday table and say a prayer or poem for them.
11. Create a festive memorial decoration in their name and display their photo on it. This could be a wreath, ornament, blanket, or dish.
12. Plant a tree in their honor in your backyard or through an organization like the Arbor Day Foundation or the Jewish National Fund.
13. Create a new holiday tradition inspired by the memory of your loved one or give new meaning to an old tradition.
14. Display a memory box at your holiday gathering for friends and family to write down and drop in memories. Read these later in the gathering.

The holidays are challenging when we’re dealing with grief. It can be easy to focus on all we’ve lost but choosing instead to focus on celebrating the wonder of that person in our life can help us cope. We always carry those with us who are now gone. Remembering them in thoughtful ways through each holiday milestone can help