So you’ve gathered everyone together and you’ve courageously listened to all the viewpoints about whether to ‘Christmas or Not to Christmas’.

You got more than you bargained for…some want the whole works, some want a condensed version, some want nothing at all. Now what?

It’ll be somewhere in the middle.

Those who want it all, will understand it’s just too overwhelming for you. Those that want nothing will need to honor that the person who died would want you to still live your life. And those who wanted something less than was ideal, are the compromisers of the bunch and thank God for them.

Now consider the list:

• Tree
• Decorations
• Baking
• Cooking
• Shopping for gifts/food
• Entertaining
• Invitations/Events in the community
• Cleaning/Painting
• Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Dinner

Take this list, and add to it if need be, and separate into four columns.

First column is the task (above), second column is how you usually handle this task, third column (most important) is ‘How could I do this differently’ and fourth column is ‘Who can I get to help me with this?’

Now that you have a sense of what everyone in the household wants, develop the answers to these questions on paper, let it sit a bit, then revise again. It’s a very interesting exercise which will soon show just how much time and energy we normally put into our traditions. It may be the cause of unnecessary stress at this point in our grieving process, so please take that into account.

Once you see it on paper, it can be much easier to reevaluate with family just what is ‘do-able’ this year.