Mueller Memorial Reaches Out to Grieving Minnesotans with Guide to Enjoying the Holidays

Online, November 21, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Mueller Memorial, a St. Paul funeral home serving the East-metro area, gives people practical steps they can take to anticipate and manage the grief they'll encounter in the coming holiday season with a guide to being "Happy at the Holidays."

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, every day about one hundred Minnesotans die. This means that roughly 37,000 local families will deal with new heartache this holiday season, and there aren't many grief support resources available to help them.

"We're using our familiarity and expertise in this area to help people to get through an emotionally challenging time," said Scott Mueller, funeral director and owner of Mueller Memorial. "Every family has their unique holiday traditions and for those that have lost someone recently—or even not so recently—those holiday traditions can make the person's absence more obvious and painful."

This year, families remembering loved ones at Christmas can request the free guide from HappyAtTheHolidays.com and have it delivered directly to their email inbox. Within the guide they'll find useful tips such as how to stay active, dealing with acute attacks of sadness and creating new traditions at local events.

To help those coping with grief create new family traditions, "Happy at the Holidays" also offers a detailed list of low-cost and no-cost holiday events and activities around the Twin Cities.

"It's not that we want people to avoid all of the things that remind them of the person who died or to just stay busy to avoid dealing with grief (which happens a lot)," Mueller said. "But adding a new experience can be invigorating and could become a part of 'the new normal.'"

Mueller acknowledges that the holidays will never go back to what they once were, and it's important for survivors take the time to accept and mourn for that. "Happy at the Holidays" encourages people to allow for the time and effort needed to find a new baseline for normal. This prepares them to accept that, in time, the holidays may not be better or worse - just different.

Those without access to email can call Mueller Memorial at 651-774-9797 and have a printed copy of "Happy at the Holidays" sent to their home. Mueller Memorial has funeral service locations in White Bear Lake and Saint Paul.

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Taelor Johnson
Mueller Memorial

835 Johnson Parkway
Saint Paul, MN 55106
(651) 774-9797
[email protected]
www.happyattheholidays.com