3 Ways to Honor Your Loved Ones This Holiday Season
By: Allison Gilbert
The holiday season may be especially challenging if your loved one has died, but you can make it a little easier by following this one piece of advice: Carve out time to keep their memory alive.
Here are three of my favorite end-of-year opportunities:
1. Make Cooking a Game
Serving that sentimental holiday dish is great, but if you want to increase the chances family and friends will remember why it’s important to you, include them in its creation. Have a few hours to work with? Bring children with you to the grocery store and launch a scavenger hunt. Ask them to find all the ingredients you’ll need to make “Grandma’s Famous Apple Pie.” I recognize it’s nearly always easier to forgo this kind of help, but if you’re open to the assistance, you’ll create a bonus pocket of time to discuss why that apple pie really matters.
2. Play Sentimental Music
My father died when he was 63. He absolutely adored jazz composer and bassist Charles Mingus. When my family gathers, his music tops my playlist.
3. Set a Loving Mood
In addition to flowers and candles, use framed photographs to enhance your holiday table. And if you have old 35mm slides, consider punching a hole in the corner of each one, stringing a piece of ribbon through the opening, and using them as charms to identify wine and cocktail glasses.
And if you’re looking for even more ways to honor loved ones who’ve passed away, may I humbly recommend my book, Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive. It’s full of creative and uplifting ideas for remembering and celebrating the family and friends we never want to forget.
Allison Gilbert is the author of numerous books, including the forthcoming biography of Hearst newspaper columnist Elsie Robinson, to be published by Seal Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in August 2022. Her latest book, Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive, reveals creative ways to remember family and friends we never want to forget.
To mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Allison is executive producer of two film projects in collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum: a documentary called, "Reporting 9/11 and Why It Still Matters,” and a 20-part series, "Women Journalists of 9/11: Their Stories.” Featured journalists include Tom Brokaw, Savannah Guthrie, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, NPR’s Linda Wertheimer, and 60 Minutes' correspondent and anchor Scott Pelley, and many others.
Please take a moment to follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. She’s everywhere as “agilbertwriter."