The holidays are supposed to be joyful. But what happens when life doesn’t look anything like you thought it would?
Maybe someone is missing from the table. Your family has changed. A relationship is strained. You’re facing financial stress, a diagnosis, disappointment, or simply a season you never expected. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t only what has changed. It’s the gap between the holiday we pictured and the one we’re actually living.
In this episode of the Care to Change Podcast, Mac Zambrano talks with April Bordeauabout finding hope when the holidays don’t feel merry. April shares from her own experience with loss and explores how we can acknowledge what hurts without allowing disappointment to become the whole story.
Because hope doesn’t require pretending everything is okay. Sometimes hope begins when we stop fighting what has changed and begin noticing what is still available to us.
In This Episode, We Discuss:
- The gap between the holiday we expected and the one we’re actually experiencing
- Why we can grieve people, relationships, traditions, expectations, and even things that never happened
- How comparing this year to previous holidays can increase our suffering
- The difference between acceptance and approval, and why accepting reality doesn’t mean liking it
- Giving yourself permission to change traditions when they no longer fit
- How “if only” thinking can convince us that peace is somewhere other than the present
- What may still be available to you, even when circumstances haven’t changed
- Why hope is not the same as getting the outcome we want
- How faith can make room for unanswered questions, disappointment, and grief
April also offers a practical question for navigating a changed holiday:
“Given what is true, how do I want to move through this season?”
Maybe that means changing where you gather, ordering dinner instead of cooking, declining an invitation, inviting someone new, traveling somewhere different, or allowing your children to help create a new tradition. Changing a tradition doesn’t erase what it meant. Sometimes it simply makes room for what comes next.
And when your mind starts saying, If only things were different, then I could be okay,consider another question:
What is still available to me right now?
Connection? Rest? Beauty? Worship? Laughter? Generosity? A meaningful conversation? Not everything you want may be available, but something still is.
Resources Mentioned
April recommends previous Care to Change podcast episodes on grief, along with Why? by Anne Graham Lotz and Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb as resources that have been meaningful in her own seasons of unanswered questions and loss.
If this season feels heavier than something you can simply work through with the support of friends and family, consider reaching out to a counselor with experience and training in grief and loss. Healing sometimes requires more than simply learning how to cope.
You may not get the holiday you imagined. But you can still experience connection, create meaning, notice beauty, receive love, give love, and find hope.
