This thread has brought home to me something that hadn't occurred to me at all: In terms of holidays, I had it easy as a widow.
It's been yearly 5 years since LDH died. In terms of holidays, what made it so much easier for me was that we were not social after his parents died and were not hosting. We never were, and got less so as his health deteriorated. So, my social calendar didn't alter with his death. If anything, it got better, because the family members he refused to speak to after his mother and father died, who are the geographically local to us members, I started interacting with them again. I had always gotten along with them, and now there was no drama in seeing them, so I do. The family members he did speak to are the ones that live 600 miles away, and I can't afford to go visiting them, and they don't come up here at all anymore.
I remember my grandmother having issues after my grandfather died, and the ladies of their dance club somewhat snubbed her, as they were apparently all afraid she'd poach their husbands or sweethearts. I don't have that issue, because I don't go out with friends very often at all, and we didn't do that as a couple either. So no change.
So thank you to the OP for helping me see one way that I have it a lot better than some. I'm a widow, I'm a bit lonely and bored, but I don't in any way feel snubbed. And that is a blessing!