Holiday Heartbreak Can Happen

Grief, Gratitude, and Christmas Eve: Navigating Loss with Your Kids 🐾

Grief doesn't follow a calendar. On Christmas Eve, our festive plans shifted to a raw lesson in resilience and heart-centered parenting after losing our beloved Labrador, Nola.

In this episode, we share how a mindset shift turns tragedy into a masterclass on love. Discover how to guide children through sudden loss with honesty and clarity, replacing "frozen dread" with active understanding.

You will learn to:

• Use Gentle Clarity: Explain death honestly to bypass fear and "magical thinking" in children.
• Leverage Curiosity: Use questions to help little minds process what they can’t control.
• Anchor in Gratitude: Hold space for both tears and laughter to build emotional resilience.

Mindset Nuggets for Healing:

• The Winnie the Pooh Pivot: "How lucky am I to have something that makes goodbye so hard?" Sorrow is simply the shape of a high-quality love. (Believe in your circumstances).
• Curiosity vs. Trauma: Asking "how" and "why" moves the brain from threat mode to learning mode.
• The Invisible Support Network: Honor the emergency workers who keep the world turning while others celebrate. Gratitude is a powerful healing tool. (Believe in the people around you).
• Healing Bridges: Rituals—like saving a keepsake or sharing a "silly dog story"—ensure memories aren't replacements, but connections.
• Humor as a Safety Signal: A small laugh signals to your nervous system that it’s okay to feel safe again.

Stop postponing your peace. Hit play to meet life’s hardest moments with grounded Living Lucky® agency.

 How to talk to kids about death, processing pet loss on holidays, emergency vet visits, teaching children empathy, overcoming sudden tragedy.

"How do I explain a pet's death to a 4-year-old?" Use simple, honest words: the body stopped working, and the vet helped them stop hurting. Avoid confusing metaphors like "sleeping."

"Can grief and gratitude coexist?" Yes. Gratitude doesn't erase pain; it provides the context that the pain exists because of a deep, worthy love.

Grief, Pet Loss, Parenting, Resilience, Mindset, Holidays, Gratitude, Self-Help,

Transcript

Setting The Scene: Living Lucky

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer 0:15

Good morning. It's Jana. It's Jason.

Jana Shelfer 0:18

And we are Living Lucky®.

A Christmas Eve Gone Sideways

Jason Shelfer 0:20

You are too.

Jana Shelfer 0:21

It's the day before Christmas. And all through the house. Alright, before we go into the traditional Christmas story, let's just tell you what happened in our house.

Jason Shelfer 0:33

Christmases don't always fit with tradition, and they don't always turn out the way you hope they will.

Jana Shelfer 0:39

Now, we are not Anderson Cooper. We do not have a podcast that specializes in grieving or mourning, but let me just tell you what happened at the shelfer household.

Jason Shelfer 0:54

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 0:55

We came home from the mall after getting those last minute Christmas presents.

Jason Shelfer 0:59

Yeah. First of all, the mall is always a fun place to be on the day before the before the day before Christmas.

Jana Shelfer 1:05

And we get to my sister's house and we enter the house and it looks like someone's been murdered.

Jason Shelfer 1:15

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 1:16

It literally looked like a crime scene from Dateline.

Jason Shelfer 1:19

So poor Nola.

Jana Shelfer 1:21

Nola is their dog.

Jason Shelfer 1:22

Nola is their their Labrador, their lab, yellow lab, and she has had cancer and she had a big tumor on her head and she had a tumor on her side, and the one on her head exploded.

Jana Shelfer 1:37

It exploded right as we were coming home.

Jason Shelfer 1:40

Yeah, and so she was dripping blood all over the furniture, all over the floor.

Jana Shelfer 1:45

All over the carpet. And then of course the dog was trying to get the get it off because it was dripping in her eyes, and then she was scooting against the wall, so there was blood all along the wall.

Jason Shelfer 1:59

Yeah, it was it was bad.

Jana Shelfer 2:01

And we come home from the mall. We've got three kids in the car. We've got, you know, my parents, my my other sister.

Jason Shelfer 2:11

We got all the generations with us.

Jana Shelfer 2:14

And of course, it's first of all, people are just trying to clean up the blood. That's the first thing. And they're trying to see if Nola's okay.

Jason Shelfer 2:23

And the other part is Nola has been with these children since they were born.

Helping Kids Understand Death

Jana Shelfer 2:27

Yes. I mean, we're talking, we've got two four-year-olds and one six-year-old, and the four-year-olds will be five in about a month.

Jason Shelfer 2:37

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 2:38

So here's the situation. Here it is, the day before Christmas, and all of a sudden we went from coming home from the mall to, you know, oh, we're gonna wrap these presents, and it's everything's happy and jolly, to all of a sudden we have the situation, and it literally went from zero to 60 because they decided to put the dog down.

Jason Shelfer 3:09

Well, you have to make the humane s decision, and it was a very tough decision. And I er I think everyone they they had a chance to talk through this, I think, before, but when the moment comes They were trying to wait until after Christmas.

Jana Shelfer 3:25

That was their they knew that this day was coming, but they were trying to wait until after Christmas. Now all of a sudden, here we are, and the whole family's there, and we've got this situation at the house. The kids are crying, and we have to say goodbye to Nola on Christmas Eve.

Jason Shelfer 3:45

Yeah, and it's uh and I think it's it's one of those things, and I loved when you said uh you brought up the Winnie the Pooh.

Jana Shelfer 3:53

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 3:54

Because and I had never heard that, and I don't I didn't remember that from Winnie the Pooh, where Winnie the Pooh says, How lucky are we that we have something that we love so much that we're gonna miss it dearly?

Jana Shelfer 4:06

That it's so hard to say goodbye.

Jason Shelfer 4:08

So hard to say goodbye, that's what it was. So and I was like, that's beautiful, right? Like that, like how lucky are we to have something that we love so much that it's so hard to say goodbye? Like that that hit me deep.

Jana Shelfer 4:23

It's hard to explain death and dying to to even ourselves, but then you add the complexity of a four-year-old mind, and this is their dog that they've known their whole life, and so how do you explain that? Nobody knew. We all were at a kind of a loss, right? Yeah, and it's and you're trying to find the the nuggets of gold in this situation that was I mean, it it was sad, it was so heart-wrenching. In fact, I think it was the saddest thing I've ever seen.

Finding Meaning Through Gentle Curiosity

Jason Shelfer 5:04

Well, and it's and it's beautiful because allowing them the space to ask the questions was I think perfect because when you allow them to be curious instead of um fearful of what is happening. So you uh you let the fear go away by letting curiosity come in and being honest with what's happening, and honest in the most gentle and caring and loving way. And I I love that when we were growing up, we had Winnie the Pooh, you know, we had Mr. Rogers, yeah, like these people that like television series or stories that would take these to heavy topics, heavy circumstances. What if we came at it like this with this love and care and curiosity and understanding and and a and a very gentle, loving approach? Because when you brought that up, I was like, that that is beautiful, and that touches me.

Remembering Nola Amid Traditions

Jana Shelfer 6:06

Thank you so much. I I know that today, you know, as we go and we open presents, we're going early this morning. There's a stocking on the fireplace for Nola, the dog. And that's gonna be heart-wrenching. I know there's gifts under the tree for Nola.

Jason Shelfer 6:28

Yeah, she's always been a part of trip Christmas, right? And she's been a part of the grown up. Dogs are part of the family.

Jana Shelfer 6:35

Dogs are part of the family. Darks are. Yes. That Australian accent is still kicking in.

Jason Shelfer 6:42

Let's bring out the darks. I love it.

Jana Shelfer 6:49

Oh, so I just wanted to share this how our day before Christmas has been going. And I don't know.

Jason Shelfer 6:59

I maybe I just needed to talk through it out for a Carthartic.

Jana Shelfer 7:05

I don't even know what I'm saying. Cathartic. Cathartic. Maybe it's cathartic.

Jason Shelfer 7:10

Now in Australia, they say Carthartic and Dargs. The Carthartic for the Darks. Now let's go get in the car and thart about it.

Jana Shelfer 7:21

That actually sounded very Australian.

Jason Shelfer 7:24

That's um the other thing I want to mention is so Eric had to take, it was after six o'clock at night.

Jana Shelfer 7:31

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 7:32

And Eric had to take Nola to an emergency after hours vet. Now I had to do this a long time ago.

Jana Shelfer 7:38

Uh-huh.

Jason Shelfer 7:39

And it's very expensive. And I want to thank the people that are working today, tomorrow, on the holidays.

Jana Shelfer 7:47

No doubt.

Jason Shelfer 7:48

Because I've been in that situation. Um, I had a job out of college where I was in law enforcement. I worked every holiday. When I worked at Enterprise Rent A Car, I worked a lot of the holidays because I worked at the airport. You know, it's uh people are traveling still. And people we're gonna be traveling on Christmas Day. So the you people that are gonna be helping me at the gas stations, helping me when we stop and get something.

Jana Shelfer 8:13

Even when we went shopping, you know, at the mall.

Jason Shelfer 8:16

There are people everywhere that that are hospitals, those those people that are serving still when other people are celebrating and with family, thank you. Because you keep the world running, and I'm we're gonna be running into you m multiple times on Christmas Day. And and thank you for being there.

Jana Shelfer 8:37

It was the night before Christmas.

Jason Shelfer 8:39

And all through the house.

Jana Shelfer 8:41

Everyone was working.

Parting Thought And Invitation

Jason Shelfer 8:42

That's right. Hey, if you run into someone out while you're out on Christmas Day or one of those days when no one else is working, buy them a lottery ticket or something.

Jana Shelfer 8:51

Thanks for joining us.

Jason Shelfer 8:52

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer 8:53

Bye bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.