The holidays are upon us once again, and for many, it’s a time of the year they spend alone. There are many reasons this occurs, whether it be because we can’t afford to go home, or we have no “home” to travel to. Sometimes we just find ourselves alone for the holidays.
I’ve been alone for Thanksgiving, and I’ve been alone for Christmas. Sure, it’s easy to fall into a funk and begin to feel sorry for yourself and your situation. Sometimes it was by choice, and other times it wasn’t. In any case, when I was alone for Thanksgiving, I found a way to make the most of my situation and looked at it with from a very short-term perspective — I may be alone this year, but who knows what will happen by next year.
It’s also a great time to do something completely different and go outside of your comfort zone or shell of security. If you’ve never volunteered at a food bank or kitchen, give it a try. Gather together a few fellow co-worked or friends you think are also going to be alone for the holidays and throw your own little holiday pot-luck dinner. Sometimes the plans made at the last minute can be the most fun and exciting.
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Nice timing. Yes I’m in the enviable position of being invited to a beautiful family get “together” and am fighting with myself, because I don’t want to go. I end up feeling 10 times more alienated from them, alone and miserable than if I stayed on my own…
I agree. I am invited too. I’m not going. Usually I make the dressing, most of the side dishes, etc….but I have a daughter in law and her mother…..two against one….and
they lie about everything to me, ….both hate to cook, and both have some very big psych problems….and they cause me to have them too!!!!! Ouch!
Who needs it.??? I’m staying home…having a ribeye, enjoying my books and watercolor painting and my dog, a standard poodle. I am thankful that I can do this without feeling guilty, sad, or unhappy.
This year, like last, I will be home alone with my cat. This is by choice, so I’m not complaining. Loneliness and being alone are two very different situations. Being alone is about the body; being lonely is about the spirit.
Well Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, whether you’re with family/friends or by yourself.
I went to my sister’s house, not far away, for Thanksgiving, and she did a great job hosting. It was traditional but casual. There were 8 of us: Sister (age 50), her daughter (24), sisters b/f (42), his daughter (8), my mom (80) step-dad (85) and my husband. I came home and cried, even tho the day went smoothly, because my only brother (age 55) is in a federal prison (since last February) awaiting his sentencing hearing in January, and his daughter (age 29) died suddenly in late August (unrelated incidents.) My brother called towards the end of our dinner today. We get 15 minutes, and then the call is automatically cut off (“Thank you for using Evercom: Good bye.”) He’s in there, I can’t help him, he made a stupid decision while under the influence of alcohol one night and is looking at 15-30 years. Of course, with federal time, you don’t know where he will serve it. He’s in pre-trial detention about 4.5 hrs. from here. He could be a couple of days drive after he’s sentenced and transferred. It’s hard to help keep his spirits up when mine are so low. He raised his two kids as a single father, and he said that Thanksgiving was always a fun day in the kitchen with his kids, watching for the turkey thermometer to pop up, and is not only in prison, alone, today, but grieving for his daughter, dead three months this week, and remembering … .
After reading your post I had to reply. I know it was last year. I hope your brother had a reduced sentence. I am alone on this Thanksgiving. My only son went to prison last year for having relations with his underage stepdaughter. This has been so shocking and horrible but it happened, he made a stupid mistake and there isn’t any way to take it back. He accepted a plea bargain with a reduced sentence from 25 years down to 15 to 20 years. With that plea deal he cannot appeal or recieve a reduced sentence. I had 4 grandaughters but now my son has lost parental rights so I lost my Grandaughters too. I had 2 sons. My first son died when he was 13 years old. I was married once for 18 years until my husband cheated with another woman. I remarried 6 years ago but am now separated because he cheated too. All of my family are gone, except a sister but she lives 3 states away. Mom died last year. It is hard to keep going sometimes. I Googled alone for Thanksgiving to find some relief that is how I found this site. I hope things are going better for you this year.
I will be alone for Thanksgiving again this year. and I was feeling sorry ro myself about that which led me to read the above posts. Reading the posts helped to shed a new light on the idea of being alone. I know these posts are from last year but they still apply.
I remember having Thanksgiving dinner at my house and inviting everyone in my extended family to come. I have always put more importance on the gathering than other people in the family. The complaints are always guaranteed, like my mother complaining about having to bake pies when no one ever asked her to in the first place, or my sister impatiently looking at the clock because she told her boyfriend she would be over after dinner. And then there is the uncle who wants to watch the game sitting in his own recliner, in his own house, …”What? I have to smoke outside?”,…”Why did you get that kind of beer?” My brother isn’t here yet because he had to have dinner at his wifes house first. “What did you put in the dressing? This isn’t how we make it. Now Uncle Bob is starting one of his know-it-all arguements with someone so now we get to hear a shouting match. Then there is the clean up and all the while kids are running around and screaming, something always gets broken. Who dripped gravy on my linen tablecoth and who spilled wine on the carpet and just left it? If you load all the dishes so high in the sink I can’t even get to the faucet. Where does this go and that go, where do you keep your…God help me!!
This whole idea of having our expectations met by having the perfect holiday is crazy because those expectations can never be met. In reality if we were to have a perfect Thanksgiving, we would have to pay actors to play a scene as if in a stage play. We could write the script and direct the show to our own preference. That is the only way we can ever have it right, or our way. Don’t let fantasy ideas about holidays make you feel like you are missing out on something because you are not. I like the idea I read above about watercolor painting. I will be alone this year and I will do something productive instead of working in the kitchen for 8 hours until my back hurts and stuffing myself with food until it hurts or listening to bickering and complaints. I’ll just have peace and quiet, ahhh!
I fell out with one of my relatives about a year and a half ago. Due to that fallout, the rest of my relatives distanced themselves from me. I actually hate all of them now. I will be by myself for the holidays, but I would rather be alone than to be with some hypocritical women who are really selfish and two faced. I will be moving out of state soon and hope never to see any of them again. I hope they all choke on their thanksgiving food!
I agree with you. This is something that happens in almost all holiday gathering in some way. I will be alone this year as well. After 30 years of marrage my wife has decided she was not happy. I married her to make her happy so what ever it takes to make that happen is what I will live with or without. I still am not sure what I will do this year. It will be a first for me for sure. She has invited me to their family dinner. Ijust would not be very comfortable sitting at the table with my (seperated) wife and her family acting like everything is just fine. She has told me she has not been really happy for a long time. I just can’t fake a smile as good as her I guess.
Listen to the song “Christmas For One” included in the album “It’s Time For Christmas” on Startune Records, ITunes and Amazon.com released on Nov.15th. The writer experienced lonely times at Christmas after losing his loved one.
Spending Christmas alone is pritty hard. I’ve got to spend it with my daughter. While my partner goes down the line. She hasn’t offered. My mother only talks to me when she wants something. I really want to just live my life with people that care enough to make me feel wanted. I live with my partner and her parents. Me and my mum and brother hate each other.
Well I spend many Christmases alone, mostly in foreign countries. This year going to be harder for me. Got a double fracture in my left upper leg, due to a motorbike accident earlier this year. It’s still very painful and I need another operation at some time. Living in the countryside with no means of transport doesn’t help.
I really really hate the idea of being alone on holidays, because it doesn’t live up to the ideal Hallmark holiday. I didn’t have any of those ideals growing up, but I had a few when my daughter was little and I was newly married. She’s grown, and I’m long divorced. But the actual being alone situation, well, I actually like being home alone on the holidays because there is no one complaining, arguing or sniping. My dogs are very agreeable. And I don’t have pressures about cooking or cleaning. I stopped accepting invitations to spend holidays with a friend’s or neighbor’s family, but they aren’t my family and it makes me miss the ideal more. This year I met a couple of similarly older 50 and 60 something singles who were passing through town, separately, and we went to a movie and then a restaurant on Thanksgiving. I liked that better than with families that aren’t mine because we had more in common.
You seemed to be the ‘sanest’ to reply to. I’ve had some ‘problems’ in my life….that affected my children’s lives…which they still (after 12+ yrs. of sobriety) hate me for….which is justifiably understandable. They tolerate me & sometimes we have ‘civil’ holiday get-togethers. Not this year. Alone for Thanksgiving & Christmas. Thankfully, I read a lot – so, I stocked up on books.
Wow! The sanest? Those are the sorts of judgments about people that create the very problem that often alienates them from family. The comment was not relevant and the fact that you are capable of publishing it says a lot about you.
I’m going to be alone this Christmas, I have family around but they all have their own families and don’t think about me. I haven’t received any invitations to join any of them. I have no partner and no children. Past holidays I have always locked myself in my house and watched television and played video games. I’m getting tried of doing this every year. Since no one comes to visit I have stopped putting up a tree for no one comes around to see and it’s a hassle to put one up. I know it’s not about gifts, but I stopped buying gifts since I never received any – to explain when we did get together for Christmas eve all the children got gifts, since I don’t have children for them to buy I still had to spend money for their children and never received anything from the parents. There are 9 nephews and niece’s and that’s a lot to buy for. In all – I have stopped celebration holidays and consider it just another day of the week.
I hear you, Jay. I had idyllic Christmases with family as a kid, though the day to day life was very dysfunctional and painful. Most of my relatives are dead, my siblings are all married with their own families in other states, and I have been divorced for many years and am single by choice. I have spent many holidays alone with my cat. Friends sometimes invite me, but it is actually harder to watch other people with their families than it is to be alone. I have no tree either and usually only get a gift from perhaps a co-worker. I hate November to January and usually try to forget the holidays exist.
I know exactly how you feel. I will be alone for Christmas, just like I was alone for Thanksgiving. I have been alone for many holidays and don’t know what is wrong with family and friends, but I am tired of it. I have no partner but have grown children and grandchildren who live 3000 miles away from me but they don’t bother with me, not even a Christmas card from them. I don’t have people stop by either or get gifts so I too stopped buying gifts because it hurts when no one seems to care. I can’t afford to buy gifts too because I live on very little. I didn’t even decorate this year; in fact, I have DVR every show so I can avoid all the Christmas crap advertised. I stopped celebrating too and look at it as just another day. It is sad that so many are feeling this way. Hopefully, next year will be better for us.
Merry Christmas Donna and Dawn! Thanks for the reply and understanding. Donna, I have my DVR as well, I’m watch Dr. Who marathon all day.
I haven’t anyone else to say this to first but to you – Merry Christmas – I hope god bless you both – even though we are all alone know that someone is wishing you the best!
Merry Christmas to you JayC, Dawn and all who have to spend this Holiday alone. I am listening to the Ghost to Ghost 2011 show on coasttocoastam since I am a Coastinsider and at 6 I will be listening to my Doo Wop on Dish which I listen to every Sunday night. I did listen this morning to a special teleseminar by The Healing Codes which they did for people who may be spending Christmas alone. If you are interested I can type in the link and you will be touched by this. God Bless you too and I am thankful for the internet that we can communicate in this way.
I am completely and totally alone for christmas. I am not sure why, but I do not have anyone in my life that I can even call and say “Merry Christmas” to. I am alone all year long. I know that is abnormal. However, I don’t realize how abnormal it is until the holidays. People at work tell me that it is abnormal not to have anyone in your life.
I have been reading all of your comments and they start with, “I was invited”, or “My brother”, or “My family”. I have none of that. My Christmas will be spent in complete and total silence (except for the tv of course). Nobody will call me.
I don’t know what to do about this. It’s very strange to realize that you are not welcome anywhere.
Merry Christmas gdub – I am sending my day watch TV as well. I’ll be watch the Dr. Who marathon this day so you are not alone.
I am alone this holiday. I didn’t expect to be and I am having mixed emotions. I was alone on Thanksgiving also. I just moved to a different city and have reconnected with some old friends but they are mere casual acquaintances it turns out. When you live your life as a rolling stone not only do you gather no moss you gather no true connections apparently.
I am alone this Christmas too. I could see my father, but it is just an awkward, terrible time spent with his wife who is loud, obnoxious, and psycho. My dad just sits there and barely talks. I decided it is better to just be alone. I was alone Thanksgiving too. I hate this time of year and just want it to be over. I will sleep through most of Christmas day. Christmas sucks. I dread it every year.
I’m alone at Christmas, and lonely. I don’t think I’ve done anything to be here like this, but perhaps I don’t pursue/or am agressive enough.Unlike some, I don’t have any options of being with someone, even if I don’t like them. Thank GAWD for charter tv, and of course that went out on me too. So, I’m ill fated. Need to find a good book to read, but otherwise I hope everyone is with loved ones and having a great Christmas.
Today is Christmas and I feel very depressed. Another one alone for me – and it’s been this way for many years. I just doesn’t get easier with time.
I am middle aged and never married. My parents are gone and my family has split up. I don’t have many friends. The friends I have live far from me. I had made one new friend, but he’s gone away for the week.
I don’t make friends very easily, and I don’t connect with women very easily either.
I went to church this morning. The message was pretty good, but I couldn’t connect with anyone. It seemed like they are all together. Also, I feel that my neighbors are doing well with people to see. They wouldn’t include me in on anything.
Well, it least it’s a nice day outside. I plan on going on a long bike ride after lunch. It may help my depression a bit.
I think I have hated Christmas most of my adult life, because I never had a partner, children, or friends. Because it is promoted as a “time to get together with….” Christmas just makes it more obvious that I have nobody to get together with. For about ten years I had a part time waitressing job that got me out of the house in the evenings, and gave me somewhere busy and bright to go for Christmas lunch and Christmas dinner, and I had a good excuse in that I could not go to any Xmas parties or lunches, because I was working, so people did not pity me for not having any family or friends.
Now, because I am disabled, I no longer have a job, not even an ordinary day job to provide me with a pseudo social group, and I obviously do not have the waitressing job, I have become that poor woman in the house on the corner who is alone all Christmas, except for her dog, I have become an object of pity which is something that I have feared all my life. Christmas just exemplifies everything that has gone wrong in my life, and draws attention to the fact that this is a time for families and people who have friends, not for lonely singles who have no friends. I HATE Christmas.
i lost my huaband 8 months ago. we were together for 28 years. i only had a relationship with him. this is the first thanksgiving without him and i thought i would cry but instead i decided to make this day my friday and i went out to take dog on two walks and went to buy pizza but ended up at dunkin doughnuts. there were single people out and about. it really wasn’t so bad, if you have the right mind set. happy holiday to all.
Sure, it’s great to be alone for the holidays. Anybody who believes that also believes in the Tooth Fairy. “Just have the right mindset, and everything will be hunky-dory.” Go to Dunkin’ Donuts and your holiday will resemble a Norman Rockwell painting. NOT.
The author of this article has no grip on the differance between lonliness and aloneness. The article expresses the word alone, but then goes on to say “gather coworkers or friends.” Alone means having no coworkers, no friends, no family, and no hope of any this year, next year, just like every year past. So the author is really just lonely. A temporary condition. Try being alone in life, which is a permanent condition.