The holidays are often painted as a time of pure joy—twinkling lights, family gatherings, and cherished traditions. But for many, this season stirs deep sorrow. Grief doesn’t pause for celebrations; it can make empty chairs, familiar songs, and festive cheer feel like painful reminders of what’s missing.
Whether your loss comes from the death of a loved one, estrangement, divorce, health challenges, or even the family you wish you’d had, holiday grief is real and valid. Expectations of mandatory happiness, resurfacing memories, and cultural pressure for perfect togetherness can all amplify the ache.
“No Empty Chairs…”
The good news? You don’t have to force cheer or pretend everything’s fine. Grief and joy can coexist. Here are some gentle ways to care for yourself this season:
• Give yourself permission to feel. Cry if you need to, laugh if it comes naturally, or simply rest. No guilt required.
• Rethink traditions. Keep what comforts you, adapt what hurts, or skip altogether. Light a candle in memory, share a favorite story, or create something entirely new—like volunteering or a quiet day alone.
• Set kind boundaries. It’s okay to decline invitations, leave early, or ask for space from certain topics. Protect your energy.
• Speak your needs. Tell supportive people what helps: “This year is tough—let’s keep it low-key” or “I’d love to talk about them today.”
• Practice small self-care. Eat, rest, move, breathe. Honor your loved one through a donation, a special ornament, or playing their favorite music.
• Seek support if needed. Friends, grief groups, counselors, or online communities can lighten the load.
Christmas Dreams
If you’re supporting someone grieving, your presence matters most. Listen without trying to fix it. Acknowledge their pain. Offer specific help. Simply say, “I’m here for you.”
Grief changes the holidays, but it doesn’t erase meaning. In time, the sharp edges soften, and space opens for new warmth alongside the memories you carry.
The Magic of Christmas
This season, be gentle with yourself. Your feelings are valid, your love endures, and healing comes in its own quiet way.
Wishing you moments of peace amid the complexity. 🎄
Write a flash fiction story that uses 150 words. That is the challenge of this contest. Write a story (on any topic) using exactly 150 words. The title does not count towards the word count. Online word processor is an estimate only. We recommend the use of a computer word processor to count the words.
The autumn wind carried salt and sorrow across Plymouth’s fields. Of the women who sailed on the Mayflower, only four remained— 78% claimed by disease and hunger. Yet the survivors gathered, hearts heavy but hopeful.
Pilgrim men, women, and children set rough-hewn tables outside their modest homes. King Massasoit arrived with 90 Wampanoag warriors, their steps steady, faces proud. They brought five deer, slain in the forest, a gift of meat to share.
The feast began with prayer, giving thanks for survival, for corn and squash, for new allies. Laughter mingled with the crackle of fires. Wampanoag and Pilgrims ate together— venison, wildfowl, and harvest bounty.
They celebrated life’s fragile persistence. Amid loss and plenty, gratitude mutually bound them. The first Thanksgiving was not just a meal, but a promise to endure, together.
For three vivid days, gratitude blazed brighter than loss, binding strangers in a fierce, fleeting harmony.
The first Thanksgiving: 1621 autumn harvest feast shared by 52 English colonists (Pilgrims) and 90 members of the Wampanoag people in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Fires roared, spitting sparks into the twilight. Pilgrims and Wampanoag feasted on sizzling meat, sweet squash, and tart berries, voices rising in prayer and song. Children darted through legs, laughter piercing the chill. For three vivid days, gratitude blazed brighter than loss, binding strangers in a fierce, fleeting harmony. It was a celebration of Thanksgiving to their Creator, not about the food.
Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. No animals were harmed in the course of this story, not even a turkey.
It was supposed to be the Thanksgiving of legends in my Antelope, California, home — a Pinterest-perfect feast where I’d flex my culinary muscles and make my Louisiana mama proud.
I’d scrubbed the house until it gleamed like a used car lot, drafted a grocery list so detailed it could’ve doubled as a military operation manual, and had visions of a turkey so golden it’d make Gordon Ramsay weep.
But, as the universe loves to remind me, I’m the kind of person who’d schedule a root canal for fun. I’d mixed up the dates. Mom wasn’t flying in two days from now—she was already here.
The doorbell didn’t just ring; it wailed like a banshee. I flung open the door to find my mother, Queen of Jambalaya, standing there in a bedazzled “Gumbo Goddess” sweatshirt, dragging a suitcase the size of a small Buick.
“Flights were for suckers, baby,” she declared, waving a gas station coffee cup like a scepter. “Drove 2,000 miles in my ’98 Corolla. Nearly ran over a tumbleweed in Nevada, but we made it!”
We? Oh, sweet chaos — she’d brought her neighbor, Miss Claudette, a woman who smells like mothballs and talks to her pet parrot (who wasn’t invited, thank goodness).
My brain short-circuited. The fridge held half a stick of butter, a questionable yogurt, and a single carrot that looked like it was auditioning for a horror movie.
Every store in Antelope was closed tighter than my wallet after a Black Friday bender. In a panic, I dialed Domino’s, the last bastion of hope in this culinary wasteland.
The guy who answered—let’s call him Chad—sounded like he was one order away from joining a monastery.
“Ma’am, we’re out of soda, wings, and joy. I got two pizzas, maybe. Delivery in 90 minutes. You want ‘em or not?”
I begged for those pizzas like I was negotiating a hostage crisis, throwing in a “pretty please” for some garlic sauce to soothe my shattered dreams.
While we waited, the house descended into a circus. Mom, wielding a bottle of hot sauce like a wizard’s wand, decided my kitchen needed “reorganizing” and stacked my Tupperware into a leaning tower of plastic.
Miss Claudette, meanwhile, was narrating her life story to my toaster, claiming it “had a kind face.”
My cousins, who’d crashed the party uninvited (because apparently “RSVP” means “bring your whole zip code”), were arguing over who’d win in a cage match: a turkey or a raccoon.
My nephew, Timmy, a 7-year-old agent of chaos, found a bag of frozen tater tots in the freezer and was now building a “potato fort” on the coffee table, using ketchup packets as mortar.
The Domino’s guy finally arrived, looking like he’d survived a zombie apocalypse. He handed over two pizzas—one pepperoni, the other sporting what looked like a crime scene of mismatched toppings (pineapple? Anchovies? Who hurt you, Chad?).
No soda, no sides, just a single, crumpled packet of parmesan dust. I tipped him with pocket lint and a whispered, “You’re my only friend.”
The dining room became a scene from a fever dream. Mom, undeterred by the lack of a proper feast, declared the pizza “Cajun fusion” and drowned her slice in hot sauce so spicy it could strip paint.
Cousin Jerry, who fancies himself a “foodie” because he once ate a gas station burrito and lived, tried to “plate” his pizza with a pair of tongs, only to launch a rogue anchovy into Miss Claudette’s beehive hairdo.
She didn’t notice, too busy telling my lamp about her bunion surgery. Timmy, now hopped up on stolen Halloween candy, declared himself “Emperor of Pizza-giving” and started pelting everyone with tater tots, screaming, “Bow to my crust!”
My sister, ever the optimist, tried to salvage the vibe by blasting a Christmas polka playlist from her phone.
Picture this: a room full of lunatics eating pizza under siege by flying tater tots, while “Jingle Bell Rock” gets a polka remix and my dog, Rufus, decides now’s the time to steal an entire pizza box and drag it under the couch, growling like he’s guarding the Holy Grail.
Mom, unfazed, raised a Solo cup of tap water (because, you know, no soda) and toasted, “To family, to madness, and to Domino’s for not hanging up on us!”
The room erupted in cheers, mostly because Cousin Jerry had just accidentally snorted parmesan dust and was coughing like he’d inhaled a glitter bomb.
By the end of the night, the house looked like a tornado hit a pizzeria. Timmy was asleep in his tater tot fort, clutching a candy cane. Miss Claudette was serenading the toaster with “O Holy Night.”
My cousins were plotting a midnight run to a 24-hour diner for “real food,” and Mom was already planning next year’s menu — spoiler: it’s gumbo with a side of pizza.
As I surveyed the wreckage, Mom slung an arm around me and cackled, “Baby, this was better than any ol’ turkey. We’re the Pizza-giving pioneers!” And honestly? She wasn’t wrong.
No one’s ever gonna top the year Antelope, California, reinvented Thanksgiving with a side of anchovies and pure, unfiltered chaos.
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