Nearly 2.7 million Americans lose someone close to them each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which means that on any given Halloween, millions of people are quietly enduring one of the hardest holiday seasons of their lives. If that’s you this year, we want you to know: what you’re feeling is real, it’s valid, and you don’t have to pretend otherwise just because the neighborhood is full of jack-o’-lanterns and laughter.

Halloween sits in an unusual space. It’s a holiday that leans hard into themes of death, ghosts, and the supernatural — imagery that can feel playful to most people but cuts unexpectedly deep when you’re carrying fresh grief. The sight of a skeleton decoration or a child dressed as a ghost might seem harmless, but for someone missing a person they loved, those images can surface pain without warning. We hear this from our families every autumn, and we think it deserves an honest, caring conversation.

Why Halloween Can Feel Especially Raw

Most grief counselors note that holidays tend to amplify loss — they’re moments our culture has scripted for togetherness, and absence becomes impossible to ignore. Halloween adds a layer that other holidays don’t: its entire aesthetic is built around mortality. For someone who has just buried a spouse, a parent, or a child, skeletons on the front porch aren’t whimsical. They’re a reminder.

There’s also the social pressure. Halloween is an outward, communal, performative holiday. People expect you to answer the door, hand out candy, admire costumes, smile. If you’re not ready to perform joy, the holiday can feel isolating in a way that Thanksgiving or Christmas — which at least acknowledge tenderness — sometimes doesn’t.

Honoring Your Grief: Practical, Gentle Options

Give Yourself Permission to Opt Out

This is the most important thing we can say: you are allowed to skip Halloween entirely. Turn off the porch light. Close the curtains. Order your favorite takeout and spend the evening doing something that actually comforts you — a film you love, a long bath, a quiet walk. You don’t owe anyone a performance of normalcy right now.

If going away feels right, even a one-night change of scenery can help. Some of our families have told us that simply being somewhere unfamiliar — somewhere without the doorbell ringing every five minutes — gave them the breathing room they desperately needed.

Lean Into the Memories That Bring Comfort

If you do decide to engage with the holiday, let yourself do it on your own terms. Pull out old photos from Halloweens past. Tell the story of the year your loved one wore that ridiculous costume. Laugh if you can, and cry if you need to — often both happen at once, and that’s not a contradiction. That’s love.

Continue the Traditions That Still Feel Right

Some families find that keeping a tradition alive — carving pumpkins, baking the same spooky cookies, hanging the same decorations — creates a thread of connection to the person who is gone. There’s no rule that says you must retire every ritual. If something still brings comfort, it’s worth holding onto.

Create Something New in Their Honor

Others find that continuing old traditions feels too painful right now, and that’s equally valid. Creating something new can be quietly powerful. A few ideas that our families have found meaningful:

• Lighting a candle at dusk in your loved one’s memory
• Placing flowers or a small keepsake at their gravesite
• Making a donation to a cause they cared about in lieu of buying decorations
• Writing them a letter and reading it aloud, just to yourself
• Cooking a meal they loved and sharing it with someone who misses them too

Let Someone In

Grief can trick us into thinking we should carry it quietly and alone. We’d gently push back on that. Reach out to a friend or family member who also loved the person you’ve lost — sometimes sharing the weight of a hard evening is exactly what both of you need. If you’re finding grief unmanageable, a licensed grief counselor or a local support group can offer a kind of understanding that even the most loving friends sometimes can’t.

A Few Things Worth Remembering

• Your grief is entirely your own. There is no correct way to feel on Halloween — or any day.
• Mixed emotions are normal. Sadness and a flash of genuine laughter can coexist. Neither cancels the other out.
• Be patient with yourself. Grief doesn’t move on a schedule, and the holidays don’t care what stage you’re “supposed” to be in.
• You are not alone in this, even when it feels that way.

Halloween will pass, as all hard days eventually do. However you choose to spend it — quietly, in memory, surrounded by people, or entirely alone — we hope you find at least one moment of gentleness in it, and that you carry into November the knowledge that the people we’ve lost are never really that far away.