Grief & healing: Holidays without a ‘happily ever after’

Believe it or not, one of the movie channels is already playing a seemingly endless series of Christmas movies. I can imagine what Baheej would say about this and the huge amounts of commercials they contain!

Christmas is a big season with lots of possibilities for stories. But these movies all have happy endings.

Of course I’m all for happy endings. But in real life, not everything has a happy ending.

First, why are there all these Christmas movies so early — they started in October, even before Halloween! I guess that’s so people will get into the gift-buying mood. Commercialism of holidays is out of control and a whole topic to itself.

Second, and most important, some life experiences do not have a happy ending. The death of a dearly loved person is not a happy ending. And holidays seem to bring back vivid memories of that sadness.

What do we do?

Well, there are still choices. The choices depend on you and what works for you. In my case, they are:

• Keep it low key.

• Curtail shopping.

• No cooking.

• No big dinner at home.

• Go to a restaurant.

• Remember the happy times.

One problem — I’ve already bought a turkey and it’s thawed now, sitting in the garage refrigerator. But I’m certainly not going to cook a whole Thanksgiving feast.

My solution is that I’m going to cook the turkey early. And then I’ll have leftovers for the real Thanksgiving Day. All I need is a can of cranberries, preferably whole berry type. And some stuffing from the deli.

The point is: There are solutions to Thanksgiving challenges and dilemmas. Just think. You’ll come up with something.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@aol.com.