Episode 188: You get to decide Thanksgiving
11/4/26
Before we get started, if Thanksgiving is already weighing on you, I’m offering a practical
Thanksgiving planning workshop on November 16. We’ll create a plan for the holiday that takes
your grief, your energy, your family, and what you actually want into account—and you’ll find
the registration link in the show notes.
Music
You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief
expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every
episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 188. Thanksgiving after the death of your spouse doesn’t have to
look exactly the way it always has—and it doesn’t have to look completely different, either.
This week, we’re talking about giving yourself permission to keep what feels right, change what
doesn’t, and remember that you’re only deciding what Thanksgiving looks like this year.
Music
Welcome to Life Reconstructed: A Widowed Way Forward. I’m Teresa, and today we’re talking about
Thanksgiving.
And specifically, I want to help you think about what you actually want Thanksgiving to look
like this year.
Not what it has always looked like.
Not what your family expects it to look like.
And definitely not what you think Thanksgiving is supposed to look like.
What do you want and need this year?
For years after Ted died, my approach to the holidays was pretty simple.
I buried my head in the sand and pretended it wasn’t November.
I don’t recommend that approach.
Because as much as I wanted to avoid thinking about the holidays, they were still coming. And it
takes a massive amount of energy to keep pushing away something you know is there.
And energy is often already in limited supply when you’re grieving.
So rather than spending that limited energy trying not to think about Thanksgiving, I want to
encourage you to use some of it to consider your wants and needs—and to plan some practical ways
to support yourself.
Because whether Thanksgiving is three weeks away or three days away, you have choices.
And one of the biggest pressures I see widowed people experience around the holidays comes from
four little words:
But we’ve always done it this way.
Maybe you’ve always hosted.
Maybe your spouse always carved the turkey.
Maybe you make the same dishes every year.
Maybe everyone comes to your house.
Maybe you have 25 people around the table.
Maybe you travel.
Maybe you use the good china that has been in the family forever.
And suddenly there’s this unspoken expectation that Thanksgiving should continue exactly as it
always has.
Sometimes that feels wonderful.
There can be enormous comfort in tradition.
Making your person’s favorite pie might feel like love.
Setting the table the way you always have might feel grounding.
Having everyone in your home might be exactly what you want.
If so, keep it.
There is no requirement that everything change because your spouse died.
But there is also no requirement that everything stay the same.
You get to decide.
And I want to give you three options to consider as you think about every part of Thanksgiving
this year:
Keep it. Change it. Or skip it.
That’s it.
And you can choose differently for every part of the holiday.
Maybe you want to keep the family gathering but change where it happens.
Maybe your adult daughter hosts Thanksgiving for the first time.
Maybe you still make your famous stuffing, but you don’t make the other seven things you usually
make.
Maybe you order the entire meal.
Maybe you keep one tradition that feels especially meaningful and skip five others.
Maybe you go out for Thanksgiving dinner.
Maybe you travel.
Maybe Thanksgiving dinner becomes Thanksgiving brunch.
Maybe you stay home.
Maybe you do something that bears absolutely no resemblance to any Thanksgiving you have ever
had before.
All of those are available to you.
And changing something does not mean that you are leaving your person behind.
It doesn’t mean the old Thanksgivings didn’t matter.
It doesn’t mean you are erasing a tradition.
It means you are making a decision based on what you want and need this year.
And those last two words are really important.
This year.
You are not deciding what Thanksgiving will look like for the rest of your life.
I think sometimes we unintentionally make these decisions feel much bigger than they are.
If I let my daughter host Thanksgiving, does that mean she hosts forever?
If I don’t make his favorite pie this year, does that mean we’re never going to have it again?
If I go away for Thanksgiving, am I creating a new tradition?
No.
You are deciding what to do this year.
Next year, you get to decide again.
And I think it can be really helpful to communicate that to your family, too.
Maybe you’ve hosted Thanksgiving for 30 years and this year you want your son to do it.
You can say:
“I’d really like you to host Thanksgiving this year. And I want to be clear that I’m only
deciding what I want to do this year. We’ll figure out next Thanksgiving when we get there.”
That gives everyone clarity.
You’re not handing over Thanksgiving forever.
You’re not establishing a new family tradition unless you eventually decide you want to.
You’re asking for what you need now.
And for my high achievers especially, I want you to notice if this thought is lurking somewhere
in the background:
It’s my job to make Thanksgiving happen.
Because maybe you’ve always been the one who makes it happen.
You organize.
You shop.
You cook.
You clean.
You make sure everybody has somewhere to go.
You remember what everyone likes.
You keep the traditions alive.
But “I’ve always done it” and “I am required to continue doing it” are two very different
things.
A tradition is not an obligation.
And preserving everyone else’s Thanksgiving does not have to be your job.
So sometime after you finish listening to this episode, I want you to sit down for just a few
minutes.
Take a piece of paper and make three columns.
Keep. Change. Skip.
Then think about Thanksgiving.
What do you want to keep?
What would you like to change?
And what are you ready to skip—at least this year?
Try not to answer based on what everybody else might think.
Start with you.
If nobody else had an opinion about your Thanksgiving, what would you want?
You can bring other people into the conversation afterward.
But first, it’s worth knowing your own answer.
And then I want you to make one more decision.
Create a Plan B.
Because you’re making Thanksgiving plans today based on how you feel today.
You don’t know exactly how you’re going to feel on Thanksgiving morning.
So maybe Plan A is going to your daughter’s house at two and staying through dinner.
Plan B might be going for two hours and leaving before dinner.
Or maybe Plan B is staying home.
Having a Plan B doesn’t mean you expect Thanksgiving to be awful.
It simply means you’ve already given yourself another option if you need one.
You don’t have to wait until you’re exhausted or overwhelmed to figure out what to do.
And you don’t have to force yourself to execute Plan A simply because Plan A was the plan.
We’ll talk more about that as Thanksgiving gets closer.
For now, I want you to remember this:
You get to decide what Thanksgiving looks like this year.
You can keep what feels good.
You can change what doesn’t.
You can skip something entirely.
You can ask for help.
You can hand something off.
You can do less.
You can do something completely different.
And none of those decisions need to become permanent.
We are not solving Thanksgiving forever.
We are deciding what might support you this year.
And if you’d like some help doing exactly that, I’m offering a Thanksgiving planning workshop on
November 16.
We’re going to go beyond what we’ve talked about today and actually create your personal plan
for Thanksgiving.
We’ll talk about what you want the day to look like, how you want your person included—or not
included formally—how to communicate with family, what to say when someone makes an awkward
comment or asks a question you don’t want to answer, what to do if you’ll be spending
Thanksgiving alone, and how to create a backup plan if the day feels different than you
expected.
You’ll leave with an actual plan you can use.
I’ll put the registration information in the show notes.
For now, your only assignment is this:
Keep. Change. Skip.
What do you want Thanksgiving to look like this year?
And remember—you get to decide again next year.
If this episode was helpful, please share it with a widowed friend. And remember that I believe
in you, and I’m here for you. Take care.
Music
If you’ve found this podcast helpful, join me on November 16 for my Thanksgiving planning
workshop.
We’re going to get very practical. We’ll talk about what you want the day to look like, how you
want your person included, how to navigate family members who may be grieving differently than
you are, and exactly what you can say when someone asks an intrusive question or makes an
awkward comment.
We’ll also talk about what Thanksgiving can look like if you’ll be spending the day alone.
You won’t leave with a list of things you should do. You’ll leave with a plan for Thanksgiving
that takes your wants, needs, energy, and grief into account.
You’ll find the link to register in the show notes. I’d love to have you there.
https://www.thesuddenwidowcoach.com/thanksgiving-workshop-26
