This will be the first Christmas that Lyubov spends without her son Taras Onyskiv, who died aged 32 in May while fighting off Russian troops on the eastern front.
She brought a Christmas tree to her son's grave in a Lviv cemetery, covered in a dusting of fresh snow.
"We'll come and spend Christmas here," she said, after wrapping fairy lights over the tombstone.
She remembered Christmases past and the long-standing family tradition of stuffing pieces of paper with wishes inside freshly-baked donuts.
"We were always so happy," she said.
Nearly three years into the Russian invasion, celebrations across Ukraine are shrouded in grief.
"Not all of us are home, unfortunately. Sadly, not everyone has a home. And tragically, not everyone is still with us," Ukrainian President Volodymyr said in an address celebrating the third Christmas of the Russian invasion.
Ukraine's army is on the backfoot in most parts of the front, including in the eastern Donbas region.
'Our children are dying'
Russian troops are closing in on Pokrovsk, the birthplace of Mykola Leontovych, who composed the Ukrainian New Year's song "Shchedryk", then adapted in the famous Carol of the Bells.
"A Ukrainian gifted the world the musical spirit of Christmas. May everyone in the world remember Ukraine when they hear it," the president said.
Lyubov is not the only one planning to spend the holiday in the Lychakiv cemetery in southeastern Lviv, one of the oldest graveyards in Europe where several families have been decorating their loved ones' graves.
Since Russia invaded, rows of new graves have appeared, creating a sea of blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags and red-and-black nationalist banners.
"We will bring Christmas porridge here on Christmas Eve. We will pray that it will be easy for him in heaven without us," said Mariya Lun, who lost her son Yuri in 2022.
Zelensky said recently that 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the war -- though independent estimates put the toll much higher.
The UN also says its confirmed number of 11,743 killed civilians is a vast underestimate.
"There is war, a cruel war, and our children are dying... we mourn our sons," Lun said.