Five Christmases Alone, Here's What I've Learned

Plus, holiday love stories to watch and listen to.

Dec 24, 2020

It feels like a missed opportunity that I’m not alone this Christmas—it would’ve brought me so much joy to see others experiencing the loneliness I felt all those years on my own. Yet here I am, the Grinch, bubbling with two Who’s in our own little Whoville.

We’ve had Christmas-style dinners almost every night—pot roast, Swiss Chalet’s Festive Special—you could say I’m sampling the Who Hash. I’ve actually been watching Christmas movies over a real(!) fireplace, eggnog in-hand. I even went to a Christmas tree farm to chop down our tree, something I’ve never done in my life. It’s like five years of missed Christmases condensed into two weeks. They tell me this is actually a toned down version of their normal holiday cheer, they’ve been holding back because they know I hate Christmas.

I don’t actually hate Christmas, I hate that I’ve spent the last five alone. Hold the pity, I did have invitations from friends to join their family festivities. But I always turned them down. I didn’t want to be an outsider playing pretend in someone else’s traditions. I had my own, with my mom and my grandparents. After they died, I became a total Scrooge, resentful towards all families, no matter how dysfunctional. But in my anger, I was overlooking the grief and loneliness I felt even when everyone was alive.

We were always a Scrooge family. My grandpa insisted gifts should be items one “needs, not wants.” My grandma ate humbug candies, year-round. After my grandparents passed, and it was just my mom and I (and our two cats), I clung even more desperately to the hope of holiday cheer. I had to drag my mom to open the gifts I’d thoughtfully picked out for her. She would sleep in so late I’d spend half the day wandering around the neighbourhood by myself, glimpsing into decorated houses, yearning for the family scene unfolding behind fogged glass. By nightfall, we’d be eating a burnt Christmas dinner I’d cobbled together, watching White Christmas on our chunky TV in the background.

Christmas was always a let-down because I yearned for some archetypal holiday I thought everyone had. Eventually I learned to want less, to suppress my desire for Christmas, to protect myself from disappointment. Once my close family had died and I was truly alone on Christmas, the loneliness that once felt distant and intangible, now felt visceral.

I spent Christmas eve in an empty laundromat in Clinton Hill, Christmas Day walking alone in Prospect Park. I turned bitter, resisting the urge to knock down displays every time I heard Christmas music in a store. But my anger had nowhere to go. On Christmas day, there was no one to resent for disappointing my image of the ideal Christmas, I was left with just me. I realized it only felt sad and pathetic if I clung onto what I thought Christmas should be.

We know loneliness can exist within a marriage or big family, we know many people feel like Charlie Brown over the holidays, but we still perceive everyone else’s festivities as better than ours. Research shows we’re kind of terrible at accurately assessing how other people really feel; we underestimate negative emotions and overestimate positive emotions experienced by others. Social media only makes it worse. We know the holiday images we see online don’t tell the whole story, yet we post our own idealistic pictures anyway, “passing on the emotional cycle like a regifted holiday fruitcake,” as Atlantic columnist Arthur C. Brooks aptly writes.

Every year, I gave in to comparison, and isolated in response. I knew it wasn’t the smartest coping strategy for loneliness, but it felt safer to not risk the hurt. My longing to join Whoville was replaced with bitter rage, that only became harder to break. Last year, I wanted to dip my toes back into Christmas—I got a baby Charlie Brown tree and listened to moody indie Christmas music. But I resisted going all out because a part of me likes being a Scrooge—it’s familiar; it keeps me connected to those I’ve lost.

Now that I’m staying with people I care about, being anti-holidays doesn’t just affect me, it means I’m raining on someone else’s white Christmas. Like the Grinch’s heart growing, I feel mine so overwhelmed with gratitude that I’m softening. I’m not busting out the carols just yet, but I’m letting in some of the Christmas spirit I’ve pushed away all these years.

We build walls to feel safe, and it can be kind of beautiful what we find within those walls, within that loneliness. In the month leading up to the big day, I was always filled with paralyzing dread. But when the day came (just the same), I realized what I was most afraid of was being left with my feelings. If I took away the commercialism and layers of comparison, it was just me, and Christmas. I dictated what the day looked like, and the only person pressuring me to feel any festive spirit was me. Without gifts or traditions or people around, I could define Christmas my own way.

This year, many people will have to isolate, whether they want to or not. Even if our circumstances force us to be alone, we choose to be lonely. If you’re spending Christmas alone, I recommend seeing it as an opportunity to turn inward—embrace what you find in that space.

Here are my tips for getting through this holiday season:

1) Let yourself want. As Paula McLain says in her Modern Love essay, “desire is never the mistake.” As much as I advocate for isolating if it makes you feel safe, don’t silence your yearning if it comes up, like I did. Give yourself permission to feel sad.

2) Avoid the stores (which isn’t hard to do this year—they don’t exactly want you leisurely gift-shopping either).

3) Resist scrolling on social media, especially on Christmas Day (those holiday onesie-coordinated family Christmas tree posts are so cringe).

4) Treat the day like it’s your birthday; do whatever you want. Sleep in. Don’t eat turkey just because you think you’re supposed to (re-creating solo versions of what everyone else was doing always made me feel disappointed). Why not take this opportunity to eat your favourite foods? (I often eat Indian food on Christmas Day).

4) Build new rituals. I’m not a spiritual person but I’ve found it can be comforting to honour the people I’m missing. Last year, since my tree was so small I had to be selective with my ornaments. I chose an angel for each of my dead people (and animals), and for the rest of the season, it gave me solace seeing them on the tree.

5) Don’t talk to people who might make you feel worse. If you’re already jealous of someone else’s circumstances, maybe skip a phone chat with them on Christmas.

Wishing you the “best” holiday you can have under these trying circumstances,
Anna

Published 📝

I published two more holiday gifts guides for Forbes (ironic, I know, given that I’m anti-Christmas commercialism). Even if you’re not looking for gifts, these products are relevant beyond the holiday season (and COVID-19).

The Best Gifts For A Good Night’s Sleep—While I’m yet to find a single sleep cure for my (what feels like, lifetime) insomnia, there are certainly products out there that help.

My bedtime ritual looks like:
1) Melatonin-infused Good Day Chocolates (with a banana of course).
2) A spritz of Saje’s Dream Rest Mist on my pillow and
3) Rubbing Saje’s Sleep Well or Stress Release essential oil under my nose with one hand (while I self-massage with my Métange gua sha stone with the other).
4) As for tech, I’m resisting scrolling in bed, and instead wearing my Muse S—a headband that gives me the low-down on how I slept (position, duration, sleep cycles, you name it). It feels super futuristic but I’m obsessed.

The Most Stylish Face Mask Accessories—I have no style game when it comes to face masks, there’s too many to choose from. But designers are starting to make innovative mask accessories that have multiple purposes (they double as bracelets, necklaces, scarves, etc.)—making them useful even when (or if) we one day no longer need to wear masks. I love the chains made by this Toronto-based mom and her three daughters, their fashion company ai makes everything in small batches in Seoul. And this hijab-friendly mask accessory-meets-ear-saver made by Kamilas 4AM Art.

Reading 📖

In Zadie Smith’s new short essay collection, Intimations, she speaks to our “current moment” so well that it feels like she’s reflecting on 2020 years later, even though she’s writing while still in it.

I love Smith’s thoughts on work and “doing” during this pandemic.

“Those of us from puritan cultures feel ‘work must be done.’ We make banana bread, we sew dresses, we go for a run, we do something, then photograph that something, and not infrequently put it online. Even as we do something, we simultaneously accuse ourselves: you use this extremity as only another occasion for self-improvement, another pointless act of self-realization.”

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But where this short read shines is in her writing on race and privilege.

“Privilege and suffering have a lot in common. They both manifest as bubbles, containing a person and distorting their vision. But it is possible to penetrate the bubble of privilege and even pop it—whereas the suffering bubble is impermeable. Suffering applies itself directly to its subject and will not be shamed out of itself or eradicated by righteous argument, no matter how objectively correct that argument may be.”

Articles:

❄️ More advice on how to get through the lonely holiday season.

⚰️ Or how to get through your first holiday without a loved one who died this year.

❤️ A holiday love story for all my fellow Scrooges (it’s also my pod reco this week).

🎄 Are Christmas trees the new toilet paper?

🎁 Here’s how to give better gifts this year (or next). Surprisingly, research shows it’s actually better to get your person what they asked for.

📝What does women’s holiday labour (think, writing holiday cards) reveal? “What the printed cards do today is function as a sort of Proof of Life,” writes Anne Helen Peterson. “Not for the family, but for the Mom. She does so much, including this.”

🛌 Anyone else every been too full to fuck? “Sometimes, if you’ve eaten a hearty meal, there isn’t enough room for a penis,” writes Cazzie David. Why can’t women choose both? Why do women feel guilty if they choose food over sex? “Our instinct when it comes to rejecting men is to blame something we have no control over.”

🍷 Festive recipes for the cynic. “Chop two cups of pecans and toast them lightly, while you allow yourself to really wallow in your grief. Actually, screw the pie. Have another glass of wine instead.”

🧻 How to re-create the holidays at home this year. Yes you can use toilet paper as gift wrap.

Watching 📺

I hate Christmas and rom-coms, so it says a lot that I’m currently obsessed with the new Christmas rom-com Dash & Lily (Netflix).

Two teens—cynical Dash and cheery Lily—find themselves alone on Christmas and fall in love via a scavenger hunt all over New York City that begins at The Strand bookstore. When I lived in NYC, The Strand was my go-to when I wanted to be out in the city but alone. So a romance that starts there, with a sardonic teen who hates Christmas, but loves Joni Mitchell’s “River”? Sold.

Forget dating apps or lurking someone online before a first date. These two have never met, but gradually get to know each other by trading the notebook back and forth, challenging each other to dares around the city. The show feels very Gen Z, with its quick takes and social media exchanges depicted on screen. But the old school courting, wise-beyond-their-years protagonists and dreamy scenes of a festive New York City make it feel nostalgic.

Ok but most importantly—Lily (played by Midori Francis) is half-Asian! Apparently Francis’ experience growing up biracial influenced the production (Lily was originally a white character in the book on which the show is based).

Listening 🎧

Growing up in foster care, Paula McLain “learned that Christmas, the most want-plagued time of year, was survivable,” if she “didn’t sit on Santa’s lap or write a Christmas wish list.” Like me, she responded to abandonment by quieting her yearning to be loved. But when she was 21, she let a guy in. This special holiday Modern Love episode tells that story.

McLain also responded to abandonment by becoming a people-pleaser (being polite, not asking for anything, etc.), “I focused on the things I could control: being good, brushing my teeth with extra care, crying less.” Hearing her story made me see how much we lose when we “bend” ourselves in an attempt to feel safe.

You can read the story here, but McLain paints such vivid wintery scenes, it’s best to hear her words read aloud (also because editor Daniel Jones checks in with her 13 years after the story was published in the post-script).

Best,