Behind all the presents and the abundance of food and drinks, the holidays are fundamentally about spending time with family and friends. But after the death of a loved one, a season of indulgent celebration can feel perverse to the bereaved. While the logistics of holiday travel, meals, and gifts can be tricky for just about anyone to navigate, grieving people may also grapple with an array of unfamiliar emotions and unenviable practical considerations, whether it’s the anxiety of gathering in a different place, whether to decorate the home as in previous years, or, simply, how to get through it all without their loved one around. The holidays are never an easy time for those who are in mourning, but they can also provide a clarifying opportunity to create a new host of routines, rituals, and behaviors for a new stage in life.

Read: In grief, try personal rituals

For those who are facing the first holiday season without a loved one, one of the biggest challenges is just wading through the deluge of raw grief.

Catherine, a 45-year-old woman in the Kansas City area who asked to be identified by only her first name to speak openly about her grief, told me she lost her mother two years ago, four days after Christmas. In the past, Christmas in her household had been a festive time of decorating, baking, and soaking up the atmosphere of her mother’s favorite holiday.

“Last year, I didn't do any of those things. I asked not to exchange gifts and just did the best I could to get through Christmas,” she says. “I was so lost in the first year that I couldn’t conceive of following family traditions. I was struggling to merely make it to work.”

That sense of holiday-season malaise is echoed by Rachel Gebler Greenberg of Hermosa Beach, California, who lost her husband, Glenn, in March 2013. She remembers lying low during the first few holidays. With family scattered all over the country, the prospect of traveling became especially difficult—one time, she arrived at Los Angeles International Airport and broke down at baggage claim, realizing that Glenn wouldn’t be there to greet her.

To avoid spending every waking moment thinking about their loss, some people I spoke with mentioned trying to stay busy in the weeks and months leading up to the holidays. Corina Saucedo, a 32-year-old nurse from Evergreen Park, Illinois, lost her mother in February. Saucedo says she’s scheduled herself to work overtime because that’s the only way for her to stay distracted. “My family knows I love my job, but they do worry I am overworked,” she told me. “I have not given myself time to grieve.”

Julie Hazelwanter, 54, from Airdrie, Canada, lost her son, William, in October. She’s preoccupying herself by putting all her energy into preparing for two separate Christmas gatherings that she had planned before her son’s death. “It’s definitely a bigger workload this year,” she says. “It keeps my mind off of everything, I guess.”