Last year, I wrote about how to survive the holidays when your Christmas is not so holly or jolly. So I decided to revisit those tips and add a few thoughts.

I still dread the Christmas holidays. But this year (thankfully) has been easier.

My father died five days after Christmas and 2014 will make it 11 years since his passing. Some years are easier to handle than others, with 2013 having been pretty bad. I never know what each one will be like until it arrives.

Christmas is especially hard because Dad loved Christmas. He liked to put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. He loved Christmas music. He was the narrator in some of our church’s Christmas productions. For a man who could be rather serious, Christmas turned him into a joyful, lighthearted person.

Last year re-emphasized to me that I’m not the only one who misses a loved one during the holidays. Here are a few tips that continue to help me get through it.

1. It’s Okay to Dread Christmas.

As a person of deep faith, admitting that I struggle with feeling happy about the biggest Christian celebration of the year is difficult. In theory, it makes no sense to feel sad. Why can’t I put my grief aside and celebrate that God came to the world in the form of a baby to show us His love? But I just can’t do that some days. That’s a reality that I am okay with and I don’t feel guilty about it.

Even if you’re not religious, give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling. If your friends or family don’t get it, that’s their problem. But you might be surprised at how understanding some people can be. Because maybe they’re hurting, too.

Being truthful about your emotions enables you to be real and not hide behind some happy mask, which is exhausting.

2. It’s Okay to Cry in Your Cocoa.

This year, it happened when we were putting up the decorations. With holiday music in the background, I unwrapped the little glass Christmas tree I had given my Dad many years ago. I only bring it out in December. I couldn’t stop the tears.

My husband came into the room and just stood behind me, letting me lean on him. I still mourn the fact that Christmas isn’t the same without Dad. You would think with time that this feeling would change, but it hasn’t. But it’s a release I need to express the emotions I can’t handle.

Crying is not a sign of weakness. It takes courage to admit you are dealing with deep personal pain. Your tears mean you feel something deeply and by letting those emotions flow out, you can find some relief.

A little more water in the hot cocoa is okay. It won’t hurt the marshmallows.

3. It’s Okay to Be a Hermit Until January.

During the holidays, you have to do what you have to do to survive. If not attending a holiday party or foregoing watching The Grinch Who Stole Christmas on TV helps, then that’s what you do. It’s never been a favorite of mine.

If it means having an extra piece of peppermint bark, nobody is going to judge you. And if they do, offer them a piece. If you’d rather listen to the Commodores (“Brickhouse” is my favorite.) instead of 24 hours of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”, that is also peachy. I always change the channel when it comes on anyway.

Getting through December may involve going into hermit mode for a little while, but that’s alright. Don’t feel guilty and pretend to feel a joy you don’t.

4. It’s Okay to Get Angry.

Amid the tears, anger can boil and bubble to the surface. I still get mad at God for taking my father at the age of 65. I’m frustrated that he’s not here to take my son to visit the mall Santa or sing Christmas carols. Dad would have loved having a grandson and the reality that he never got to meet him is frustrating.

It’s true that I’m blessed that I had my father as long as I did. But that doesn’t make me any less angry.

Don’t deny that anger. Stuffing it down inside just makes it worse. Acknowledging your frustration is the first step in making peace with it. If you like to exercise, working out can burn off some of that steam, too. Heck, it can burn off the calories from all that peppermint bark you ate!

Or yell at God if you want to. I have. And I know He can take it.

5. It’s Okay to Break Into Laughter.

When I was young, we had a rather bizarre Christmas tree stand that Dad had fashioned out of an old tether ball tire and a holder he wedged into the center of it. Regardless of whether or not we got a real tree or used a fake, shoving a tree into that stand was a challenge. I would sneak out of the room during this time while the stream of Yosemite Sam-like swearing (not always rated PG) took place. It still makes me laugh thinking about it.

Dad was also nuts for the movie A Christmas Story, a slice of his childhood served up on celluloid. Remembering his guffaw at the father’s (Darren McGavin) angry attempts to get the furnace to work or his pride in receiving his “major award” in the form of a naughty leg lamp are memories I treasure. Watching that movie makes me feel close to Dad again, if only for a few hours.

Laughing while you’re crying is fine, too. Sometimes you can’t have one without the other.

6. It’s Okay to Live in the Moment.

Thinking of December as one long desert of misery may turn it into just that. Instead, I try to live hour by hour, day by day, with no expectations. It’s much less exhausting.

Some of it’s going to just stink, so I work on being a little spontaneous. Breaking out into “Holly Jolly Christmas” with my fake Burl Ives accent is funny to me (I try not to do this in public). So is greedily biting the head off a gingerbread man. Or watching Barbara Stanwyck in Christmas in Connecticut for the hundredth time. Who wouldn’t swoon with handsome Dennis Morgan as a sailor on holiday leave?

By living in the moment, you celebrate life for what it is. A weird but fascinating mess of unique experiences and emotions. Yes, there can be flashes of joy amid the moments of grief.

I hope this helps, it’s all I’ve got.

Merry Christmas, Daddy. And yes, I still miss you.

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre

— “Light My Fire” written and sung by The Doors

I fell into a burning ring of fire,
I went down, down, down as the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

— “Ring of Fire” sung by Johnny Cash (written by Anita Cash)

Cremation is a topic I’ve addressed before but I’m not quite done yet. It fascinates me. Maybe that’s because I didn’t truly consider it an option until recently.

Even more interesting to me is the concept of cremation by means of an open-air funeral pyre. The kind of thing you see in movies but rarely see up close. What often comes to mind are movies featuring Viking funerals in which a boat carrying the deceased is lit afire with flaming arrows. In truth, such ceremonies were rare since one had to burn a boat in the process and you had to be fairly well off to own one in the first place.

You can’t recreate your own Viking funeral in the U.S. today unless you want to end up in jail. The closest you can come is what the band Gwar did for their frontman Dave Brockie this year. They launched a boat containing his stage costume on Hadad’s Lake in Richmond, Va., lighting it on fire with a flaming arrow.

The first time I saw an open-air funeral pyre was while watching the TV mini-series of James Clavell’s novel, Shogun. The Japanese heroine’s Shinto-based funeral included the pyre her body lie on being set alight. I was only 12 at the time but the image stuck with me.

In India, open-air funeral pyres are commonplace. It’s a central part of the Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh religions that dominate that part of the world. In the West, however, it’s very rare.

Because cremation took so long to truly catch on in the U.S., only recently has the idea of having a service that includes an open-air funeral pyre come up. It’s rare for a number of reasons, but mostly because it violates state and local ordinances to perform one unless you get special permission to do so. The 2008 funeral in Indiana for the Dalai Lama’s brother, Thubten J. Norbu, is one example.

The wisdom behind that is sound. Untrained laypeople setting fire to corpses in their back yards is just not a good idea. The risk of setting one’s neighborhood on fire is too great.

However, there’s one place in the U.S. where you can have this rite performed for you legally: Crestone, Colorado.

A tiny village about 160 miles from Colorado Springs, Crestone is nestled at the foot of the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains. According to a 2011 CBS report, Sangre De Christo means “blood of Christ,” and legend says the name comes from a Catholic missionary priest whose dying words were “Sangre de Cristo” after seeing a sunset over the mountains.

Native Americans are said to have called the area “The Bloodless Valley” because it was so sacred no bloodshed was allowed.

With origins like that, it’s little wonder that in recent years, Crestone and the area around it is now home to over a dozen different religious centers. From Roman Catholic Carmelites to Zen Buddhists to New Age devotees, Crestone welcomes all comers.

In light of the religious diversity of the community around it (the village itself has a population of around 100), Crestone’s residents were interested in finding alternatives to traditional burial. Out of that effort came the non-profit Crestone End of Life Project (CEOLP). They were especially eager to create a legal outdoor funeral pyre.

By 2008, CEOLP had gotten all the required permits and established ties with local hospice workers, the volunteer fire department, county coroner and clerk, as well as a nearby family-run mortuary. Experienced volunteers help with the cremations. They also help families with filling out paperwork and making other needed arrangements.

According to the CEOLP, their “Care of the Body” team assists with washing and anointing the body, and attending to its preservation so the deceased can lie in state at the home for up to 72 hours in order for friends and family to pay their respects. This can involve the use of dry ice and air conditioning to slow down decomposition, unlike the usual embalming process that takes place in a funeral home.

So what does an open-air funeral involve? The funeral pyre, constructed from a concrete and brick-lined hearth, is topped with a steel grate. The body is usually wrapped in a simple linen cloth, and then surrounded by juniper logs and branches. If they wish, family and friends can place the torch to the funeral pyre, a ritual that is significant in some religions.

How the ceremony itself (which usually takes place early in the morning) is conducted is based on the family’s wishes, from a simple service to one with music, dancing and ceremony. It takes about four to five hours for the body to burn completely. After the pyre has cooled, the ashes are collected. Because there is no way to separate the human ashes from the wood ash, the family receives about five gallons of ashes.

Tessa Bielcki wrote this about her family’s experience with a 2008 Crestone cremation:

Everything about the cremation was personal, intimate and meaningful. We took care of Dad’s body ourselves. We cut the evergreen boughs from our own land. We created our own altar to express the uniqueness of Dad’s life and included his black medical bag and stethoscope, his wedding portrait, and the last photo taken of him four weeks earlier with the nephews (and lobsters!) he loved. We chose his shroud, one I’d brought for him a year ago from the ancient city of Jerusalem.

Before you get the notion that this option sounds good to you, there’s one catch. You have to be a resident of Crestone or the surrounding Baca Grande area (including the little town of Moffat). According to CEOLP, that means you’ve lived there more than three months. They also ask for a donation of $500 to cover expenses incurred.

While this rule may seem restrictive to some, CEOLP leaders created it to keep their little corner of the world from being overrun by outsiders and not overburden the all-volunteer operation. As of September 2013, CELOP had performed 32 open-air cremations.

While open-air cremation is not something I’d want, I understand why it’s attractive to others. The backdrop of the Rocky Mountains is certainly appealing. I can believe that outdoor cremation can be a moving experience in which to participate.

But if for some reason I do choose this route, please don’t play “Light My Fire” by the Doors at the service.

I’d prefer “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash.