“I know all too well how stunningly [unpleasant] your first Christmas after you get divorced can be,” observes a main character in a popular TV show. I know, too. I’ve been there. But there is a way to still feel the love, joy, and comfort of home and holiness that Christmas brings, even after a difficult experience or the seeming severance of family ties resulting from circumstances such as divorce, or even death. Through my own experience, I learned that we can’t be deprived of the power and joy of Christmas, no matter what.

The first Christmas after I was divorced seemed particularly hard because my children were not with me; they were spending the holiday with their father in another state. I had never before spent Christmas without my children. How could I be happy with no festive dinner, no colorful stockings to hang on Christmas Eve, no opening of packages or hugs around the room on Christmas morning? How could I not feel lonely, bereft of what had always seemed so wonderful, so normal?

It was clear that I needed to find a higher meaning of Christmas—the celebration of Christ’s appearing rather than the activity of seasonal festivities and family traditions.