Christmas has a way of making an absence feel bigger. The tree goes up the same as always. The same ornaments come out of the same box. And somewhere in all of it, there’s a person who isn’t there to see it.

Here’s what my husband, a licensed funeral director, tells families every December: the hardest part of the holidays after a loss usually isn’t the big moment — it’s the small ones. Reaching for a stocking that isn’t needed anymore. Setting the table and stopping to recount. Decorating a tree they used to decorate with you.

You don’t have to choose between grieving and celebrating this season. Most families find it’s not one or the other — it’s finding small, honest ways to bring someone along. An ornament with the right words on it. A wreath that says what you’re already feeling. A quiet phrase on the mantel that only your family understands.

This guide walks through four ways families are doing that this year — through tradition, through the classic language of “in loving memory,” through faith, and through the small comforts of home. Use what feels like you. Skip what doesn’t. There’s no wrong way to keep someone close at Christmas.

Before we start: every phrase here is yours to use

You don’t need anything from us to use a single word on this page. Write it on a card and tuck it into the tree. Add it to this year’s Christmas letter. Say it out loud when you hang the first ornament. The words matter more than where they end up.

(If you’d rather have something ready-made — a finished ornament design, a wreath print, something you can drop a name into and have ready in five minutes — we’ve built each of these into ready-to-print sets. There’s a note about each one as we go, and everything’s linked together at the end.)

Traditional Christmas Memories: the ornaments that carry them home

For a lot of families, the tree is where grief and Christmas meet first. It’s the one tradition almost nobody skips — which also makes it the one most likely to stop you cold, when you reach the ornament they always hung, or the spot on the tree that was always theirs.

Wording that fits right on an ornament, a gift tag, or tucked into the box:

If you’d like something ready-made: these six phrases make up the Traditional Christmas Memories set — sleigh, bells, and ornament designs built to print onto an ornament, a gift tag, or a keepsake print.

In Loving Memory Christmas: the classic way to say it

Some years you don’t want a new way to say it — you want the words that have said it for generations. “In loving memory” isn’t trendy. It’s just true, and it’s the phrase most families reach for first.

Where it goes: a wreath on the door says it before anyone walks in. A place card at the table says it without anyone having to bring it up first. Either way, it does the quiet work of including them without asking the room to talk about it.

If you’d like something ready-made: these designs make up the In Loving Memory Christmas set — including the two blank wreaths, ready for you to add a name in a free Canva account.

Christmas in Heaven: when it feels closer this time of year

For a lot of families, faith is where the season’s hardest ache and its biggest comfort sit right next to each other. Heaven feels closer at Christmas than it does most of the year, and a lot of families want language that says so, plainly.

If you’d like something ready-made: these seven designs are the Christmas in Heaven set — angel, church, and tree imagery built for ornaments, prints, or a keepsake card.

Christmas Feels Like You: the small things that still feel like them

Grief doesn’t only show up in the big traditions. Sometimes it’s the smaller, stranger things — the mailbox, a stack of books, the smell of something baking — that catch you off guard, because that’s what actually was that person to you.

If you’d like something ready-made: these six designs make up the Christmas Feels Like You set — quilt, teacup, mailbox, and mantel imagery for the everyday parts of the season that still feel like them.

If more than one of these feels right

Most families find they need more than one. The tree brings up tradition, the table brings up faith, and the kitchen brings up something else entirely. You don’t have to pick a lane — mix the wording, use what fits each moment, and let the season hold all of it at once.

A last word, from a funeral family

Everything here is shaped by what my husband has seen over years as a licensed funeral director, and this is the thing he tells families most: you’re allowed to grieve and celebrate in the same room, sometimes in the same breath. Nobody who’s lost someone has ever regretted keeping them close at Christmas.

A few things that might help from here:

• If you’d like to see all four sets in one place, browse Memorial Keepsake Designs.
• For more ways to bring someone into the day itself — activities, keepsakes, and traditions beyond what’s covered here — see 15 Meaningful Ways to Remember Mom or Grandma at Christmas.
• And if the ache follows you past the season, One Small Good Thing is a gentle daily journal built for exactly this — proof that a hard year and a good day can both be true at once.

However you spend this Christmas, you don’t have to leave anyone out of it. They’re already part of it. These are just a few ways to say so.