This will be my second holiday season without my parents, and already I am feeling the need to get through the next few weeks quickly—sad too because this used to be my favorite time of year.  Here a are a few tips of what helped me most during the first year of grieving:

1. Do something different, break tradition.  You don’t need to get out the decorations this year if it seems too hard.  I did something simple…I just put a string of orange lights on my mantle.  I found the glow of them to be especially comforting throughout the day and night.  BTW, the color orange has been proven to actually make you feel better.

2.  Do something nice for yourself every single day. Go to the grocery store and buy 5 things:  apple cider, cinnamon sticks, star anis, and 2 oranges.  16 cups juice, 10 2″ sticks of cinnamon, 8 star anis, and grate the rind of 2 oranges.  Heat for 10 minutes. Sip on this for a while.  The house smells good, and it feels good to have something warm on your throat.

3.  Wear warm socks all the time.  It helps.

4.  Don’t watch the news.

5.  Try and sleep. Consider a broken heart to be a little like major surgery, it takes a long time to heal.

I’ll give you more ideas later…this is enough for now.  Remember, forgive yourself for everything…being late, sleeping in, not washing your hair (it does help though), eating too much bread.  Sugar actually causes depression, so watch it…

Just a day at a time.