#443 - When the Holidays Feel Different: Navigating the Season as a Midlife Single
For many midlife singles, the holidays arrive carrying more weight than cheer. If you’re divorced or widowed, this season doesn’t just bring decorations and gatherings, it brings reminders. Reminders of traditions that once felt automatic. Reminders of seats now empty. Reminders of a life you thought would look very different right now.
That sense of loss isn’t just emotional, it’s structural. Holidays are built around routines: who hosts, who cooks, where you go, who you sit next to. When a marriage ends or a partner is gone, those routines don’t simply adjust. They collapse. And suddenly, you’re left trying to figure out how to move through a season that was never designed for this version of your life.
It’s important to say this clearly: that grief is real. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It doesn’t mean you’re stuck. And it certainly doesn’t mean you’re failing at “doing the holidays right.” It means you’re human, navigating change in a season that magnifies everything.
What often makes the holidays especially hard for midlife singles is the pressure, spoken and unspoken, to recreate joy before you’re ready. Well-meaning friends may say things like, “You’ll be fine,” or “Try to enjoy it,” as if joy is something you can switch on like a light. But forced cheer rarely heals anything. In fact, it often pushes grief deeper underground, where it lingers longer.
Instead of rushing yourself toward happiness, this season may be inviting you to do something quieter and ultimately more healing: to gently release what no longer fits and begin creating traditions that honor who you are now.
That doesn’t mean erasing the past. It means acknowledging that your life has changed, and pretending otherwise only adds more pain. New traditions don’t have to be big or dramatic. Sometimes they start with something as simple as reclaiming your time and choosing how and where you spend your energy instead of defaulting to expectations that no longer serve you.
Maybe that looks like volunteering on a day that feels heavy. Maybe it’s traveling somewhere new instead of sitting in a house full of memories. Maybe it’s hosting a small, intentional gathering with people who truly see you, or giving yourself permission to keep things simple and quiet this year.
From a faith perspective, this can be a season of gentle trust. Not the kind that demands instant peace, but the kind that believes God meets us exactly where we are, not where we think we should be. Scripture often reminds us that God is close to the brokenhearted, not disappointed in them. You don’t have to have all the answers or feel grateful for the pain in order to move forward.
You don’t have to force joy but you can take small steps toward moments that bring warmth, connection, or peace. Those moments matter. They add up. And over time, they become the foundation of new traditions, rooted not in loss, but in intention.
If this season feels different, that’s okay. Different doesn’t mean doomed. It means you’re in a transition, and transitions, while uncomfortable, are often where growth quietly begins.
As you move through the holidays this year, consider this: what’s one small, intentional choice you could make that honors where you are now and gently points you toward where you want to go? That single step might not change everything…but, it can begin to change something.
I wish you all God’s blessings this holiday season.