When the Lights Come On

Grief, Tradition, and the Quiet Work of Choosing Joy

The holidays are here.

For the past four years, this season has carried a weight I used to think belonged only to other people. For some, the holidays have always been grounds for anxiety, a place where old wounds rise like bile and threaten whatever joy the season promises. For me, that reality began after our first loss.

It wasn’t always that way. Before grief entered our story, the holidays were my favorite stretch of the year. Part of that was because my birthday is tucked into the season, but mostly it was the warmth of family visits, once-a-year dishes, and the idyllic scenes that made the whole stretch feel like something out of a Hallmark set. Snow. Laughter. Thanksgiving tables set with intention. A Christmas morning that smelled like cinnamon and hope.

After our first loss, the holidays lost their glow. They became a faint outline of what joy used to look like. Silence replaced the sounds I had imagined—giggles, small feet thundering down the stairs, wrapping paper scattering across the floor. What remained was the ache of absence, a “blue Christmas” that settled deep.

When we lost our second son, the season was already marked by grief, and the fresh wound fit too easily into the old one. I remember that Christmas morning with painful clarity. We opened gifts for each other, but a few stayed hidden in the closet. They had been bought in a season of hope: a “Cool Dad’s Club” sweatshirt, maternity leggings, matching mugs for new parents. They became artifacts instead of celebrations, reminders of what could have been and how fragile life truly is.

But that same year, a friend—one of the most intentional gift-givers I know—placed something sacred in our hands. Three ornaments. Each engraved with our sons’ footprints and names, and a third with both sets of prints beneath the words “our babies.” I have shared that story before, yet I return to it because it shaped the way we honor our boys.

Every November, we put up our tree. Not because we are eager to rush the season, but because those weeks belong to them. The tree starts simply. Only the ornaments that bear their names, the crocheted white hearts, and the pieces loved ones have made in their memory. We wait until after December 6 to add anything else. Their birthdays deserve the space to stand alone. We say their names. We light candles. We write them letters. It is our grief made visible, yet it brings a kind of peace that feels like a gift. A quiet reminder that they remain with us.

2025: The Year of New Traditions

This year already feels different. Last night, just before we put our daughter to bed, we decorated the tree. We placed the ornaments, talked about our traditions, and held each other the way we have every year since our losses. But this time, the moment belonged to more than the two of us. It belonged to her too.

This will be her first holiday season. She has had many firsts this fall, but nothing prepared me for the way her face lit up—wide-eyed, startled, then slowly delighted—when I turned on the tree lights. She reached out with soft wonder, touching the branches, the warm glow, and the engraved footprints of her brothers. She does not understand the meaning or the history, or the importance of their lives, but something about that moment eased a corner of my heart I didn’t realize was ready to heal.

It felt like the beginning of a shift. Not the erasing of grief, but the rearranging of it. All the sorrow we’ve carried, all the longing and tears, gathered into a box I now feel capable of opening with intention. Those feelings still belong to me, and I will never discard them, but they no longer get to speak for every hour of my life. I can honor them without being ruled by them.

This year, I am choosing when to invite grief in. Sometimes that will be daily, sometimes on birthdays or holidays, sometimes unexpectedly. But I decide when to open that box, show those memories the respect they deserve, and then set them gently back in their place. They remind me of what I’ve lost, yes, but also of what I hold now.

This holiday season, I will grieve my sons and honor their memory. I will speak their names and miss them with a depth that feels endless. But I will also make room for new memories. My daughter is here, and she deserves to experience a father who can feel joy without guilt. I expect this new journey to be imperfect, marked with missteps and tenderness, but I also trust it will offer moments of wonder that stretch far beyond the season.

This year, I am choosing joy—because joy and sorrow can live in the same room, and sometimes turning on the lights is enough to show the way forward.