Alright friends, I’m going to bring down the holiday mood here a bit but I’m going to try to do it not super dark way – so let’s talk a little bit about grief. And money. Because this is a personal finance blog, right?

For those reading along for years, you may recall that my mom died around the holidays in 2018. And by around the holidays, I mean she died on Christmas Eve. Formerly my favorite day of the year.

Now a fairly complicated one.

And I am perpetually surprised by how grief works. I mean, it’s also super subjective, my own experience will not be the same as yours, though heaven knows there are many similar threads that make up grief – it’s just the tapestries they create that vary.

In the first year, I mostly outran my grief. And I actually think I nailed this. During that run, I met a few people who told me you can’t outrun or outbusy grief, but to them, I say “watch me.” And I don’t regret this at all because I see it as there is X amount of time between when my mom died and I will die. If I can outrun most of the reality of the situation for a year that is now X-1 of just living in this new grief reality and to me that seems liked a win.

I am not past the attempt to outrun stage and well into the reality and still think this was a perfectly logical and good choice and would support anyone making a similar one.

In year 2, a global pandemic happened, that also stretched into year 3. Year 2 was just discombobulating. Year 3 was so depressing for so many different reasons I could barely function (fun fact though – most people didn’t really know that – grief is more like underwear than outwear – most people don’t see it and you don’t necessarily want most people to see it).

Here we are at year 4 and as we approach this time of year again, I find that this feels a bit different and a small intellectual part of me is intrigued and wonders if each passing year will have it’s own strange flavour of grief or if this properly settles in at some point. But this year my mom being gone feels very, very real. This should be a normal Christmas but apparently there will never be a totally normal Christmas again.

But, unlike Year 2 or Year 3, this year I would like to regain some of my favorite holiday that has been… paused… for 4 years now.

And this is where the money comes in – Christmas has been more expensive this year than pretty much any other year (not including the last minute plane ticket from London to Maryland for Christmas Eve 2019 for a whirlwind 16 hours at home).

My boyfriend has been very cool about my desire to make entirely new holiday traditions, which, to be frank, being in a new country with it’s own Christmas traditions has made this very easy. Christmas markets exist in the states but they aren’t a THING. They are here. Winter Wonderland is a THING. Riding children’s reindeer rides is now a thing.

The first thing on the docket when I got to New Jersey was to get a Christmas tree with my dad and decorate it. There will be cookies.

And there has maybe been an overabundance of gifts.

My mom was a person who always went sort of overboard with gifts.

I always thought I was fairly moderate about it but this year there was a moment where I was like “who is this even for?” which was literally a conversation I would have with her when wrapping gifts every year but never happened with me.

So we do eventually turn into our parents, though it turns out when that parents was beloved and is now dead, it is a pleasantly warm and fuzzy feeling to turn into them a bit, even when it’s one of their bad habits you see you’ve picked up.

So on the heels of my highest spend on Christmas gifts that I’ve ever had, I guess I’d like to remind everyone out there to hug those you love this holiday season and soak in the moments you have together. They really don’t last forever – at least not in a physical sense, but the memories of those moments really do become priceless.

And if you spend too much this Christmas in a subconscious grief coping mechanism – you have the next 11 months to sort it out. It’s probably not the end of the world.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas