My husband died in 2019 and we always always decorated like the Griswalds. We talked about whoever was the last alive, would kerp up the tradition. We knew it would be him, he had 3 different cancers. It was hard but I did it all the first year he died. He passed close to Christmas. So it was hard to do. I got out all the bins of lights and stuff, and at the bottom of each bin, was a different note. "You. finally listened to me"This is what my mom and I stumbled upon when we decided not to put up a tree the Christmas after my dad died...at first I just said I didn't feel like doing it because it was always a thing I did with him, and she agreed. We just put a a couple of small decorations out so that we weren't totally skipping Christmas...and then we kept seeing little trees in various stores, and kept buying them, and after a while we had quite a big collection and a new tradition. After a couple years we actually talked about how just tossing out the "old way" of doing Christmas, and starting to do something totally new instead, was what helped us get back in the Christmas spirit...if we had gone back to doing all the same stuff, there would have been a huge dad-shaped hole in it, but because we did something different there wasn't as much emptiness.
The first year is definitely hard though. Honestly, even after the first year it's still...just different. My mom died in 2018, shortly after Christmas, and I'm still not back in the Christmas spirit. I've just been kind of going with the flow and doing different things the past few years, and I have faith that I'll eventually settle into a rhythm again. My thoughts are with you and your wife @der1117. I don't know if this is necessarily all that helpful, but I feel like what worked best for me was to accept that the first year or so is going to suck. It just will, it doesn't have to be a good Christmas, you can decide to sit it out for this year if you want.
"I knew you would do this"
"Are you done yet?" Etc
But the best one of all
"Thanks honey. You did a great job. I love you. Don"t forget to get the oil changed"
I put up every light and decoration we had. He was the best.