Dear OP first of all I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy for you in the midst of the grief that you are going through. I hope that the following might assist but if it strikes the wrong note then please forgive me because I’m trying to pass on my experiences. I do understand a little of the pain that you’re going through and I’ve had the benefit of talking with a relative who suffered painful losses.
The first thing to say is that I was given wise words from my relative who had suffered trauma and grief. She said that the pain doesn’t go away you just learn to live with it and, in some way, it’s a measure of your love. Don’t look too deeply into that because I’m not saying that grief is good, but I am suggesting that at some point you will be able to accept that it is a part of your life.
The other thing I want to say, and I’m finding it difficult to find the right words, is that the mind plays tricks on you. It takes a huge amount of effort not to dwell on what has been lost and your mind keeps pulling you back to that. I’m not saying that one wallows in it but I have noticed - particularly when I’m tired or ill- that it’s very easy to slip into dwelling on what I no longer have. The trick is to turn that sadness into a feeling of love and gratitude for the fact that you had that relationship together and that they were in your life. I literally have to tell myself to do that and it does work, in an instant, but it takes practice and commitment. Sometimes one just doesn’t feel able to make the effort, but we do have a choice in the way we think and it’s helpful to remember that.
What you are so rightly realising, if I may say so, is that Christmas is going to be a vulnerable spot and that if you don’t take action now, you will spend the whole period comparing now with then and dwelling on that, almost wilfully inflicting pain on yourself, by remembering how things used to be.
I can’t suggest what might work for you, but I do suggest you guard against falling into that trap by making alternative arrangements and thinking patterns that will not allow you to do that, and by committing to notice when you start slipping into that. You do have to look out for yourself.
Sometimes, the love for what you have lost is so strong that you- I - want to dwell within it because you want to experience that life again and feel that love. But you can click out of it in an instant, incredibly, by changing how you think and telling yourself that you are thankful to have known them and who have had them in your life. That your life would’ve been poorer without them and that you accept their loss as a consequence. The trouble is, one so very often doesn’t want to do that.
I’m not really making a lot of sense but there are ways of thinking about what has gone and practical ways of protecting yourself from being in a situation where one is brooding constantly on how things used to be. It takes an effort of will. Please note that I am absolutely not telling you that’s how you’re feeling now is wrong and as I am not telling you not to grieve or that you should bury how you feel, that is not at all the message that I’m trying to convey.
The only other thing I would add, and I do urge this upon you, is that well meaning people will tell you about Kübler-Ross’s model of the stages of grief. These are complete hokum and research has disprove them many times: the idea can also be harmful. There is no set programme of how you will feel and there is no linear progression. You will feel different things at different times and you will re-experience feelings that you thought that you had moved past. Which is all ok.
My very best wishes to you