Coping With the Holidays Without Your Children

Last year as the holidays approached, I came across a blog entitled “Coping With Divorce When the Kids Are With the Other Parent During the Holidays” by psychologist Sharie Stines. In my own life experience, and in working with parents going through a divorce, I recognize what a critical and deeply distressing time this is, especially for recently divorced or separated parents who are without their children on the holidays for the first time.

Those holidays can feel incredibly sad and difficult, and very, very empty. Many of the clients that I work with have described this experience to me and I personally remember myself when I was newly divorced, what it was like for my children to be somewhere else and not with me on those most meaningful holidays.

It’s also really challenging when you’ve established a tradition in your family, like always going to grandma’s or always having your extended family at your home to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve or New Year’s, and then suddenly find that tradition disrupted. It is enormously sad for the person who is no longer part of that ritual, to know that their children are there with the other parent, and they are not. 

It’s really important to pay attention to yourself and your own needs during these times. Be really compassionate with yourself and give yourself a lot of care. Each holiday becomes a kind of trigger for remembering what holidays were like when the family and all your hopes and dreams and wishes were intact. Doing something that you absolutely enjoy can be a real gift to yourself.

It is important to take care of yourself and begin to create an alternative set of rituals that will help you through the holidays. As much as you would love to be with your children, this year is your opportunity to create a different kind of holiday ritual for yourself. 

• Celebrate with your children prior to or after the actual holiday.
• Celebrate an early Christmas if your kids are going to be away with their other parent.
• Create a ritual with relatives or other friends who may be without their children on the holiday.
• There may be opportunities to travel with a group, such as taking a cruise, where you can enjoy celebrating with others.
• Connect up with other relatives or friends who would be delighted to have you at their table.

There are places that have their own holiday celebrations, like the Rowe Camp and Conference Center in Massachusetts, which has a Thanksgiving for single people. Other retreat centers, like the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, have programs to celebrate the holidays, where you can be part of a community and not feel alone.

If you find you are going to be alone, find something to do that would be really meaningful to you. Many people find great comfort in going to a shelter and serving meals to the homeless or wrapping donated gifts for poor children, and collecting and distributing those gifts.

It’s also important to not always think of the Hallmark Holiday — this perfect kind of holiday experience that you imagine everybody is having except you. There is a great deal of depression around the holidays, not just among divorced clients but for many people, due in part to our tendency to idealize this time of year in such a huge way, so stay in the moment. Don’t romanticize the past or fret about the future.

There is real value in fully mourning things that are lost, so just stay present to allow all of your feelings — even the ones that are hard and difficult and sad. Those are the real things that you’re feeling at this point and those feelings will help you grow.