Spending the Holidays Alone
Tags: Holidays, Self Love, Loneliness, Growth, Alone

First of all, whether you’re actively choosing to spend the holidays alone or are doing it out of circumstances due to Covid-19 or life event, I hope that you’re compassionate towards yourself and are extra kind to yourself this holiday season. Give yourself the permission and the challenge to invest in your happiness and emotional health by buying and making yourself your favorite meals, spending a few extra hours in bed, playing your favorite games, watching your favorite films or YouTube channels, treating yourself to your favorite drinks, and buying yourself presents. Give yourself a hug and treat yourself the way that you’ve always wanted to be treated. Perhaps you need to forgive yourself for an indiscretion or even the way that you treated yourself in the past. Self-care can come in the form of self-reflection, grieving, going to therapy, and crying. Whatever it may be, I implore you to accept yourself, whatever your financial state might be, whatever goals you may or may not have met, and love yourself during this holiday season.

The holidays are meant to be a time to celebrate and to come together with your loved ones. For some of us, the holidays are trying times. They are the times that amplify the fractures in our lives and in our families or they can be the times in which we pretend that everything is okay, only for things to fall apart and to go back to the way they were after the holiday season.

Growing up, the highlight of my Christmas holiday was going to the Chinese grocery store in Houston. We drove an hour and a half each way just to go to a grocery store! Seeing the items on the shelves, even though I wasn’t allowed to buy them, made me happy. Because we were poor, we didn’t exchange presents. We weren’t even allowed to buy cakes or such. Mostly, I loved going to the grocery store because in those few minutes, it felt like I was in China again, and I could pretend that everything was okay. My mother usually gave us the silent treatment or had some sort of angry outburst before or after going to the grocery store — pretty much at all times — but at the grocery store, she usually wasn’t as mean. I stayed out of her way and didn’t ask for anything. Those were the happiest times of my life. It aches to remember and to write about it now. Because my father hated the Chinese government, we weren’t allowed to celebrate Chinese holidays either. So life was just a long blur of misery. The thing is, even when things changed and my parents earned more money, the holidays remained the same. The only difference was we bought a tree and on Christmas morning, my father would write me a $100 check. There was no love or appreciation. Just a transaction.

As an adult, I set out to have real holidays. But I didn’t realize that I was still playing pretend and creating a fabrication. I chose people who would have proper Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations but I didn’t really enjoy spending time with them. The holidays were this construct, and we played our parts, but we didn’t like each other. Still, this was better than the holidays that I spent at home. There were real presents underneath the tree and large celebratory family meals with drinks. There was genuine laughter and even momentary happiness, but our relationships didn’t work, and I wanted real lasting relationships, apart from the holidays.

Going Cold Turkey

In the last few years, I’ve been spending my holidays alone. I quit the holidays like an addict quitting cigarettes. I went cold turkey. If I didn’t know how to choose people who were healthy for me and people I really wanted to celebrate with, then I would spend it by myself. At first, I thought that I was a loser. Even so, I ventured to buy myself my favorite brisket sandwich. I spent a week without talking to anyone. The second year I spent Christmas alone I ate BBQ again and went to see Vox Lux. The waiter at the BBQ joint gave me a free helping of potato salad. At the movies, seeing people that actually liked each other made me feel sad. I wondered why I had such a difficult time surrounding myself with people who I liked and who liked me back.

Core shame and fear of attachment prevents me from seeking healthy people who are good for me while trauma bonding impels me to seek out the same kind of people and relationship dynamics that I grew up with. It’s all I know. Even though I was sad and I spent Christmas and New Years alone, it was the best holiday I’ve ever had. I ate what I wanted to eat and I did what I wanted to do. For the first time, I was part of the equation. I didn’t have to spend my holiday break at an outlet mall as my mother browsed the racks for hours without buying anything or humiliating me. I got to do what I wanted to do. Last year, I caved and spent the holiday season with an old college friend. After the second day, I realized that I was wasting my time, that I was still chasing people who didn’t choose me, and that it was officially time to go on my way and stop looking back.

The holidays, for people like me, are difficult. It means looking back at a history of holidays filled with deprivation and low self-worth. Sometimes, the holidays compel me to relapse. To seek out people from my past just so I don’t have to spend the holidays alone. I feel ashamed because I am alone. There are conflicting voices in my head judging me for being alone and cheering me on for taking care of me. The judgment doesn’t feel very good.

The last four years has made me stronger. Being alone has helped me to rebuild a relationship with myself and it will help me to seek people who choose me as much as I choose them. I am not there yet but I will be. The most important thing during the holidays isn’t the presents or the food or drinks. It’s the people that you spend it with. Healing and grieving takes a long time. Quitting abusive people and starting a new way of life takes years. I wish the transition period didn’t take so long. I have a firmer idea of what I want and I am committed to making it happen. I’d rather spend the holidays alone than with people who don’t appreciate me. I just hope that I get past my fears of attachment and core shame so that I can begin to seek out healthier relationships. Here’s to normalizing spending the holidays alone and to carving out a life that is healthy for you.

I understand that Covid-19 has forced people who actually appreciate one another to be apart. My heart goes out to them. At the same time, Covid-19 has allowed people like me — a person who would rather be alone to do so without having to explain it or justify it to someone else. Whatever the case may be, I hope that you love yourself and give yourself the permission to be kind to yourself, whether you’re alone or with others.

Being alone on the holidays doesn’t have to be sad or lonely. It can be but that can actually be a good thing as it is part of the healing and grieving process. In the last four years I’ve gotten to know myself better, and I’ve gotten more out of the holidays than spending it with people who had to make digs at me to make themselves feel better. I’m learning to meet my needs and to treat myself. In the past, I chose to spend holidays with people just to be around people. Any proximity to another human being was better than being alone, even though being around them meant the absence of me. One thing I’ve learned in my adulthood is that it’s better to be alone than to be around people who don’t see me. It’s hard for me to understand that I can be around people and be completely myself at the same time. That’s the next step in my healing process. Here’s to the holidays and here’s to taking care of yourself!