Creating Meaningful Rituals After Loss During the Holidays

By Johanna LeRoux | Transformative Journeys

Rituals are one of the ways we mark meaning in our lives.

From the big moments like weddings, funerals and formal holidays – to the small, everyday things in between, like the way you make cup of tea or your bed-time wind-down routine.

Regardless of whether it’s the order in which you prefer to do your laundry or how and when you decorate your home for the holidays in December… ritual is everywhere. It provides a comforting way to ground ourselves, familiarity, and sometimes a bit of emotional steadiness.

And when we’re grieving, or trying to navigate life after a loss or upheaval, rituals can become a quiet form of survival.

As I’ve grown into this season in my life – and especially during this season of the year – I have developed a deep appreciation for the power of ritual.

Not the religious kind… or the rituals prescribed by others’ expectations… but the rituals I have created in my own life. The rituals that I have built and fostered over the years, and that may or may not have changed as I’ve grown into who I am now.

So are rituals and traditions the same?

They actually aren’t, although we may have rituals in our traditions – or traditions in our rituals.

Traditions are often shared, passed down to us, or expected. Things like:

• Decorating for the holidays on the first weekend of December
• Attending midnight mass or lighting the menorah
• Making your Nana’s cranberry sauce because it “just wouldn’t be Christmas without it”

Rituals, on the other hand, tend to be much more personal. They might be things like:

• A solo visit to your loved one’s resting place at certain times of year
• Lighting a candle to symbolically include them in family get-togethers
• The specific way you make a cup of tea (milk in the bottom of your cup? Or poured in at the end?)
• Deep breathing before you hit “record” on a podcast episode because you’re about to talk about something vulnerable (ask me how I know…)

Ritual is about comfort, often has personal meaning, and it’s usually done with some intention.

It’s often also how we hold space for what matters – which is why they become so important when we’re grieving.

Grief throws everything familiar out of balance – emotionally, physically, and neurologically. And rituals can help us feel a little more grounded in the moment - providing us with some small semblance of structure during emotional upheaval.

They can allow us to feel some sense of agency when everything else in our life feels out of control. And they can provide a symbolic connection to someone or something we have lost.

And they can help provide a gentle, repeatable pattern in our brain to help us process pain.

Neuroscience supports this. Our brains like to have pattern and predictability – especially when our life feels chaotic or out of control. Even tiny rituals can provide our brain with a little bit of the predictability that it craves and help calm our emotional centre a bit.

Dr. Kenneth J. Doka, a Professor at the College of New Rochelle and Senior Vice President for Grief Programs for the Hospice Foundation of America, outlines four kinds of rituals that support the grieving process:

1. Rituals of Continuity – Maintaining connection (e.g., making your person’s favourite meal)
2. Rituals of Transition – Marking change (e.g., packing away their belongings)
3. Rituals of Affirmation – Expressing emotion (e.g., writing a letter you never got to send)
4. Rituals of Intensification – Collective remembrance (e.g., memorial walks or community quilts)

You don’t need to wait for a special date or milestone to create a ritual. Some of the most meaningful healing rituals can be ordinary things – that we do with intention.

Simple things like:

• Lighting a candle and say their name - or even having a conversation with them
• Wearing or using something that belonged to them when you journal
• Visiting a peaceful place you once shared or that held meaning in your relationship
• Reading near their grave, just to be near
• Making a meal they loved and thinking about them while you prepare it
• Donating to a cause in their honour
• Creating a memory tree or stocking for quiet notes from the heart during the holidays

Rituals aren’t necessarily public or shared activities. And they don’t have to be perfect or structured for them to have meaning.
They just need to mean something to you.

A small suggestion, from me to you, before the holiday season begins…

Take a few moments to pause and ask yourself:

• Are my (or our) old traditions still compatible with where we are now in life?
• Are there some traditions that need to be adjusted, delegated to someone else… or just skipped this year?
• Am I planning to continue this tradition because it brings me comfort – or because I feel obligated to?

It’s perfectly okay to take a break from a tradition for awhile, or to do things differently this year – or for a few years.

And it’s ok to just start something entirely new that feels more appropriate to this new chapter in your life.

Here are a few reflection prompts to take away with you today:

• What part of the holiday season feels the heaviest for me, and why?
• Which traditions no longer fit the version of me who is grieving?
• What is one small, meaningful way I can honour my person - or honour myself - this season?

Traditions and rituals aren’t about getting it all “right.”

They’re not about pleasing everyone.
They’re about marking what matters.
About remembering in a way that fits who you are now.

And sometimes… they are just about carving out a tiny corner of calm in the chaos.