How to Be With your Loved Ones Past and Present During the Holidays: Christmas and Holiday Solace

I originally wrote this as separate Facebook posts and have decided to paste them all together here​ on the blog. It really helped me to just compose quickly​. I kept getting stuck whenever I tried to write about lost loved ones and the ways I stay close to the​m until I used social media to make it less of a big deal in my heart and mind. 

The First Day is a repeat of an earlier blog post but I wanted to have all ​t​he days of Christmas together here.

Although December 25, 2025 is behind us as I write this now, I always leave all of my decorations up until Epiphany, the day when the wise men traditionally made it to the baby Jesus on January 6. I really like the idea of waiting for the three kings to get there before I move into the next new year.

The First Day of Christmas and Holiday Solace: Touch

In the past week or so, my smaller circles of connections have seen a lot of loss. Some of the losses have been older people who were lingering for a long time before passing this week. Some deaths were more sudden with people dying of unexpected aneurysms or tragic accidents.

I've been working on a blog post for Art Words and Yoga about ways to stay grounded and connected to our lost loved ones during the holidays. I'm still working on that but it's taking me longer than I want to pull that together.

So I decided just this morning after learning of yet another loss to start posting about ways to stay connected to our lost loved ones even as we live in the moment with the loved ones who are still here.

I'm offering it as a sort of antidote to the glitz that we sometimes feel pressured to feel around the Holy Days—the holidays.

I make no promises to be consistent. I also think some of my own strategies are best for those whose grief is older. Those with recent losses may need to just keep trying to take one breath after another and know that the waves of grief will get less tsunami-sized. That over time they will feel less like they will shatter into tiny pieces.

For this I put together jigsaw puzzles. My dad did those for years and the rest of us would help. He taught me how to do this one giant puzzle at a time, mostly by example and occasionally with a scowl when I tried to cram together pieces that clearly did not fit.

Now I am able to remember him even as I wrestle with finding each piece. It takes up my dining table and we suspect the cats help me lose at least one piece for most of the 1000 piece puzzles I do. (Sorry, Dad. I know losing a piece is not protocol. Ever.)

Here is how to do a puzzle in the way that my dad taught me with specific instructions for this Arboretum puzzle and its extra difficulty rating:

1. Separate out the edge pieces from the center pieces. Put the center pieces onto two cookie trays.

Feel close to your dad again. Remember that it was a problem to give up those cookie trays during the holidays.

2. See if you can also organize them into easy patterns or colors while you are at it. This won't be easy because you don't yet know the trees.

Feel close to your dad again.

3. Get excited about the Ginkgo tree because it's yellow and looks so obviously different. This will be a trick. The Gingko is the hardest one of all and you'll only finish that last and only then because you have come so blasted far that you can't quit.

Feel close to your dad again.

4. Think about quitting many times.

Feel close to your dad again. Remember that you never once saw him quit a puzzle. (He, of course, might not have started one like this.)

5. Enjoy the time you get to sit near your husband and your teenage son. Bother them about what they are watching while you are getting serotonin hits for each piece you do manage to find.

Feel close to your dad again. Remember how he used to bug you about watching Wonder Woman.

6. Wonder at the French terms for the trees but not enough to look them up in English.

Feel close to your dad again. Remember how he studied German instead of French just like you did.

7. Get frustrated with the Lebanese Cedar and organize all the pieces for that by shape. Realize part of your problem is that there are mostly two shapes. Call them "long and skinny" and "short and fat" in your mind as you organize them.

Feel close to your dad again. Remember his rule about not putting pieces in the center until you had matched them.

8. Finish after an unreasonable number of hours that you would not want to try to count. Let the completed puzzle sit on the table for a day or two and run your hand across it.

Feel so close to your dad that you can almost hear him tell you that you did good work. Even with that gosh-darned missing piece.

The Second Day of Christmas and Holiday Solace: Smell

About a half mile from my house a whole city block is filled with woods as a part of the Pierce County Parks system. I've walked those woods for years with my dog Ottis and it's not much of an exaggeration to say that the walks have saved my life. The trees and paths soothed me through the loss of my sister to cancer and then through the time when I needed to change jobs after working in the same place for 25 years.

The county has closed the woods to the public now because they are logging and creating more of a developed park out of it. I won’t be able to go in again until next year at the earliest and it will be a changed place when I do.

In October, I was running and walking near the woods, doing my high intensity intervals that so many medical people have recommended. I walked for two minutes and ran for 30 seconds repeatedly.

I was physically stopped in the middle of a run by an incredible aroma that pulled at my heartstrings. It was like a memory that took me over. I felt like I had walked into a dream and it took me a good long moment to figure out what had made me stop.

It was the smell of fir trees recently logged in my woods—just like my grandpa, uncle, and dad logged when I was young. Just like the pieces of firewood my little sister Mary and I lugged up steep hills and put in Grandpa’s giant beat up Suburban. Like the logs they cut for the cabin in Hansville during endless hours of labor.

Those memories were powerfully vivid. They didn’t feel like they were past with that smell all around me.

I felt so conflicted in so many ways. So mixed. I felt joyous at the memories. Sad that the trees I’ve loved are down and yet deeply grateful for my body’s remarkable ability to keep me connected to my loved ones from the past.

My sister, dad, mom are all there. Even my grandparents. Like a parade of ancestors and Mary. I went home feeling better because of the runner's high and also because of the powerful hit of good memories even with the mixed emotions around them.

I picked up some Season Simmering at the Puyallup United Methodist Church Holiday Market a week or so ago with the idea to simmer those greens and maybe bring back that aroma for when we host my husband's family Christmas this year. I'm curious to know how my new idea of simmering works out this year.

Maybe there is some aroma that brings good memories for you too? Something that lets you feel close to loved ones past so you can bring them along with loved ones present? I hope you find it or at least can sit in a moment of soft remembering while considering delightful smells from years past.

The Third Day of  Christmas and Holiday Solace: Taste

One year I fell onto the idea of cooking (and eating) as a way to bring my past family along in the gatherings that I have now. Fortunately for me, I have printed cookbooks and recipe boxes from my mother, grandmother, and from my aunt who collected recipes from Mom's side of the family.

Grandma's Chocolate Brownie Pie

This last Thanksgiving I made Mom's double chocolate pie and Grandma Helen's chocolate brownie pie. I think both of these recipes originated in cookbooks like Betty Crocker but I have the hand written cards my loved ones wrote so they would not have to keep looking it up in a cookbook.

There is something extra meaningful about reading the words they wrote and knowing they read them on holidays past as they whipped the cream and chopped the walnuts. Something about flipping through the worn out cards with food stains in those little tin boxes that they also flipped through so many times. Something that gives me a sense of soothing closeness to them.

It doesn't hurt that my family now heartily approves of this particular practice. The guys especially liked the double chocolate pie with all the layers of cream.

I've decided that I'll add Annie's apple cake to the Christmas cooking next week. My son always loves that just like my dad did. (I'll need to leave off the super sweet rum sauce. Dad never liked that either.)

I don't think this cooking-to-stay​-connected is a new idea at all. I think we've been making family recipes to remember our loved ones for generations. Maybe you do the same?

P.S. I just found Mom's recipe for a Christmas cactus fertilizer!! I was thinking she had something like that. I'm so glad I wrote this for you so I could find it. My cactus likes its new spot at work and I'm a little afraid to mess with it but the recipe might yet come in handy!

The Fourth Day of  Christmas and Holiday Solace: Sight

When I taught and took writing classes, sight was always a go to. It's easy to let it dominate and forget to include our other senses like taste, touch, smell, and hearing.

Perhaps this is because our sight is incredibly important to us.

This year I created a small corner of my studio where I hung photos of my family who have passed on. It's a sort of ofrenda and I have been so grateful to have them in my corner, behind me even as I type this.

This corner started when my niece gave me framed photos of her mom and my dad from the weddings. I didn't want to leave them in the closet and liked having them near me—right by me as I passed in and out of my studio.

It was hard for me to find a photo of my mom where she looked happy and at ease. The formal framed photos were not the right setting for her.

Finally I found the scrapbook that her incredible nursing friends put together and gave to my sister and me at Mom's memorial service. They had photos of her in her work scrubs, looking cute, and photos she had taken of her garden with her beautiful Siamese cat Phineas.

There are many other ways I've used sight to let them live on in my heart even as I continue to love those near me.

I often go to Whidbey Island where my dad's family comes from. There I can gaze out over the sea in the place where Grandma grew up and Dad visited his grandparents.

I don't live far from Lake Tapps where I grew up. Ottis and I like to go there on occasion to walk by the lake where I walked many miles with Dad.

And Mary. She's often the hardest for me to talk about and to find ways to work her into my life now. The sting from losing her is still pretty sharp. But I can tell you that I have the cards she wrote to me tucked into the corners of my bookshelf so I can look again at her words to me.

I bet I don't need to tell you about pictures and places that will remind you of your own loved ones. I bet you have these things already just like writers who find it so easy to start with the sense of sight.

The Fifth and Last Day of Christmas and Holiday Solace: Sound

Recently, I trained to teach yoga for people with dementia and I marveled that even when our brains start to fail, music can help us connect. I wasn't surprised.

Music was such a part of my childhood in ways that I didn't realize until much later in life. (I don't know if you will click on the musical links I found but you will get a much stronger feel for the sounds of my loved ones if you do.)

Some of my earliest memories are of singing in the car from the little green Methodist songbook. I remember "Lord of the Dance" the best. I can't find a recording but here are a few of the lyrics:

"I danced in the morning when the world was begun,

And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,

And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth:

At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be,

I am the Lord of the dance, said he,

And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,

And I'll lead you all in the dance, said he."

Later my Mom set up her art studio in the rec room with that weird green and gold carpet. My parents loved classical music and there are many pieces by Vivaldi and Mozart that will bring me right back to that room.

When I started practicing yoga as a teenager, I often completed my sequence with Mom's big sound system turned up and the lights turned off. I remember especially liking "Der Hölle Rache" from the Magic Flute. Eventually I looked up the lyrics and figured out that it's not exactly a compassionate piece. But I've always been fascinated by the skill of the singer and it worked well for the more flowing sequences.

Here is one incredible soprano in the midst of her glorious aria:

You can easily see on YouTube what I couldn't: The Queen of the Night is quite the villain.

Any of the pieces my parents loved bring them back to me this time of year. I can feel them near in the midst of that soprano's sound.

Mom also loved pianist George Winston and I fell into that this year when my streaming service picked up on the fact that I might like to hear his album called Winter again too.

Recently, Florence and the Machine has been a quick way to feel close to Mary. She loved that band and The Cranberries with their take on "Zombie." Sometimes when I hear them, I feel her reaching out.

But most of all, sound keeps me connected to my lost loved ones because of my clarinet. My family suffered through the early years of my practice for 20 minutes a day, 7 days a week like my band instructor required so I could get an A. (And I was totally motivated to get that A.)

Dad drove me to lessons at the university after I grew beyond the local teachers and I marvel at all the hours he put into those drives when I was in middle school after he had worked a full day.

The other day my streaming service also figured out that I would be drawn to "The William Tell Overture" by Rossini. I'm pretty sure you know this one—the Lone Ranger Theme Song.

We played that for hours and hours in high school marching band while we practiced and competed for the state championship. We memorized each note and I can feel the music in my fingers and my soul just like the yoga teacher training says people do even after many of their other cognitive functions are gone.

My family was there with me in the cold at football games and again listening to me practice hour after hour, messing up those long runs and trying once again.

All of it brings me back to a time when my family of origin was still on earth and I am incredibly grateful to the strange power of music to form connections in our brain that span the decades.

I hope you'll find ways to connect to your loved ones past and present even while you cut yourself quite a bit of slack in the midst of all the activities. I bet you need that as much as I do. That, more than anything, is the most likely to bring you Christmas and Holiday Solace.

I wish you all a magical and musical Christmas and New Year full of all five senses.