Honoring the Child You Lost During the Holidays: Meaningful Ways to Keep Their Memory Close

The holiday season has a way of amplifying everything we feel—joy, nostalgia, longing, and heartache. For many bereaved parents, this time of year can feel especially tender. Everywhere you turn, you’re met with images of “perfect” families, busy calendars, sparkling lights, and traditions that may now feel incomplete.

If you are grieving the loss of a baby or child, the holidays can bring up a complicated mix of emotions: love, sadness, gratitude, resentment, hope, and everything in between. There is no right way to do this season. There is only your way.

If you’re searching for meaningful ways to honor your child during the holidays, here are a few ideas that might offer comfort, connection, and a sense of continued bond.

1. Create a Tree (or Add to Your Existing Tree) in Their Honor

A beautiful way to weave your child into your holiday season is by decorating a tree—whether it’s a small tabletop tree just for them, or your family’s main Christmas tree.

You might choose ornaments that remind you of your child:

• Ones with their name

• Ornaments in their birthstone color

• An ornament gifted to them

• Symbols that feel meaningful (for our family, butterflies are “Saachi signs,” so they find their way onto our tree every year)

This doesn’t have to be a separate tree unless that feels comforting. Sometimes integrating your child directly into the main family tree feels like the most natural way to acknowledge that they are and always will be part of your family.

2. Let Your Traditions Include Them

If your family participates in traditions like Elf on the Shelf, this can be a surprisingly sweet way to honor your child.

Our family has an elf for each child (yes… four kids, four elves, and four times the chaos), and our daughter Saachi has one too. It’s whimsical, a little silly, and surprisingly healing.

3. Hang Their Stocking with Intention

For many families, putting up a stocking for their child is a deeply meaningful ritual.

You can:

• Fill the stocking with handwritten notes

• Add drawings from siblings

• Collect small gifts for the family in your child’s honor

This ritual gives you a place to physically “put” your love—something so many grieving parents long for.

4. Do Something Generous in Their Honor

Acts of kindness can be profoundly grounding during the holidays after loss.

This year, our family “adopted” a single mom with three kids and ensured they would have gifts to open on Christmas morning. Gifts are not everything—but they are magic to a child and spreading that magic in Saachi’s honor felt like another way to include her.

Other ideas:

• Donate toys, books, or baby items

• Pay for someone’s groceries or gas

• Volunteer at a holiday event

• Support organizations connected to your child’s story (NICU, pregnancy loss groups, etc.)

Giving to others doesn’t erase grief—but it can expand your child’s legacy in meaningful ways.

5. Include Them in Your Holiday Cards

If you send holiday cards, it’s completely okay—and incredibly meaningful—to include the child you lost.

You might:

• Add a photo of them

• Include a symbol that represents them (like a butterfly or a ladybug)

• Sign their name if that feels right

• Feature a picture of something that connects you to them (their special blanket, a favorite toy, their memorial garden)

What matters most is honoring the truth of your family and all its members.

The holidays can be beautiful and brutal all at once. If you choose to honor your child in big ways or quiet ones, know that there’s no right or wrong.

Whatever this season looks like for you—I hope you feel space to move through it in a way that feels true to your family and to the child who will always be yours.

With love,

Saachi’s mom