The holidays look different when you’re not part of a traditional family setup. This is my take on holidays from thousands of miles away, working through Christmas, and enjoying quiet celebrations that don’t match traditions back home. If your holidays don’t fit the expected narrative and you’re wondering whether that’s disloyal, here’s what twenty years of non-traditional holidays have taught me.
When Your Holidays Look Different
Table of Contents
When the Script Doesn’t Fit
There’s this assumption baked into the holiday season: everyone has somewhere to be. Family to visit. Traditions to honor. A proper celebration that looks like the movies or the greeting cards.
But what if your holidays don’t look like that? What if you’re working through Christmas because that’s your schedule? Or you’re far from family geographically or emotionally? Maybe the traditional setup simply doesn’t exist for you anymore, and you’re mostly… fine with that?
For twenty years, I’ve spent Christmas Day teaching English in Japan. It’s a regular workday here. No decorations in my apartment. No big meal. Just teaching, or farming, then my regular evening. When I call my family in the UK later, there’s always this slight awkwardness if I admit it’s just another Tuesday for me. I try not to be a buzzkill by even mentioning it.
But I’m not the only one living holidays differently than others back home might expect. Maybe you’re working because someone has to, or you get extra pay. Maybe you’re alone by choice or circumstance. Perhaps you’ve built a life that doesn’t include the traditional family gathering, and you’re OK with this season, but wonder if you should feel guiltier about it than you do.
Does your holiday reality match what everyone assumes it should look like?
The Unspoken Pressure
During the holidays, if you’re not part of a traditional family, there’s sometimes a quiet expectation that your experience should be explained or apologized for.
You’re working? You must be sad about that. You’re not traveling home? You must be lonely. You’re indifferent to the whole thing? Something must be wrong with you.
But what if none of that is true? What if you’ve just adapted to the life you actually live instead of performing the life everyone expects?
In Japan, Christmas isn’t a national holiday. Most people work. Some buy KFC and cake as a novelty, but it’s not a big cultural moment. New Year’s is what matters here, and even then, my tradition is simple: walk in the cold on New Year’s Eve, hand-deliver two cards to my two bosses’ homes. That’s it. That’s my celebration.
I have respect for Christmas of course. The tradition, family gatherings, even the religious context. But when you live somewhere long enough, you adapt. “When in Rome,” right?
Except that adapting can make you feel like you’re betraying something. Like you should be doing more to honor where you came from, to stay connected to your roots, to prove you haven’t completely lost touch.
But here’s what I’ve learned: adapting to where you actually live isn’t betrayal. It’s just honest.
What traditions have you let go of?
The Many Versions of Distance
Distance during the holidays takes different forms. Maybe it’s literal, as in thousands of miles between you and family. Maybe it’s emotional, like you’re in the same town, but the connection isn’t there. Or maybe it’s circumstantial, and everyone’s schedules don’t align, or budgets don’t stretch, or life just got complicated.
For years, my family and I maintained what we call “comfortable distance.” A card as the minimum sign of respect. Occasional phone calls. No pressure for expensive gifts or elaborate plans. It worked because we all understood the reality: I live in Japan, they’re in the UK, and crossing that distance for holidays isn’t simple or cheap.
But comfortable distance gets complicated as people age. My father is 85 now. My mum has dementia and lives in a care home. My sister keeps me updated on their situation, and there’s this growing awareness that “comfortable distance” might not be an option much longer.
That’s the thing about holidays when you’re far from family; it works fine until suddenly it doesn’t. Until someone gets sick or time runs out or you realize that the flexibility you had is quietly disappearing.
Maybe you’re experiencing something similar. Parents aging. Family dynamics evolving. Any comfortable arrangement that worked for years starting to feel less comfortable as things change.
There’s no easy answer, is there? Just the awareness that the reality of being a long way away might feel different as time moves on, and any sense of responsibility changes.
How do you handle family responsibility if distance is a factor?
What You Stop Missing
Sometimes, for some people, not having a holiday is more peaceful.
Maybe what you don’t miss is the pressure. The obligation to show up. The family drama that surfaces every year. The expense of gifts nobody needs. The forced cheerfulness when everyone’s actually stressed, sad, or not in the mood.
Maybe what you don’t miss is any cultural negativity; the focus on bad news, the complaints about weather and politics and how everything’s getting worse. Disconnecting from that constant narrative can be surprisingly freeing.
Maybe what you don’t miss is having to justify your choices or your life to relatives who don’t understand why you live the way you do.
When students here occasionally ask about my holiday plans, I’m upfront: staying home, working, keeping to my simple routine. Some older students might wonder why it’s been so long since I visited the UK. But we’re all different. I don’t need to justify my choices.
There’s still a tiny bit of pressure when I talk to my family, because I want them to feel comfortable, to know I’m okay. But as we all get older, hopefully, we worry less about performing the right version of our lives and can just relax and be ourselves.
What holiday pressure have you let go of?
When Indifference Isn’t the Same as Sadness
I’m mostly indifferent to the holidays.
Not sad. Not lonely. Not wishing things were different. Just… indifferent.
If my schedule balances out, computer time at home balances with work, exercise on the farm balances with teaching in the classroom, and I can make time for my simple pleasures.. it’s all good. I dream about things constantly: projects, possibilities, the motorcycle I might buy someday. But those dreams exist within a simple, steady life that doesn’t revolve around holiday milestones.
That indifference used to feel like something was wrong with me. Shouldn’t I care more? Shouldn’t I be trying harder to create meaningful celebrations or maintain traditions?
But I’ve come to think indifference might just be another form of contentment. Not the excited, grateful kind, just the steady, okay-with-how-things-are kind.
Maybe you know this feeling. The holidays approach, and you’re just… fine. Not thrilled, not dreading it, just accepting that this season will look however it looks and that’s okay.
That doesn’t mean you’re broken or disconnected. It might just mean you’ve found peace with a life that doesn’t follow the script.
Does your indifference about the holidays feel natural?
The Many Ways to Do This
There’s no single right way to spend the holidays when you’re not part of a traditional family setup. Your situation might look like:
- Working through the season because that’s your schedule
- Video calling family from thousands of miles away
- Spending the day alone and being genuinely okay with it
- Embracing new traditions that fit your actual life
- Maintaining minimal connection, like a card or brief phone call because that’s what’s realistic
- Letting the whole thing pass without much acknowledgment
- Feeling relieved when it’s over
All of those are acceptable.
Some might say it’s all relative, and what feels like deprivation to one person is freedom to another. Working on Christmas might sound sad to someone who loves big family gatherings, but peaceful to someone who finds those gatherings exhausting.
The traditional nuclear-family Christmas get-together is one option. But it’s not the only legitimate way to spend this season.
What Actually Matters
I send cards to my family because that’s our agreed minimum. I hand-deliver cards to my two bosses because they’ve given me meaningful work. I work on Christmas Day because that’s my schedule here. I walk in the cold on New Year’s Eve because it’s become my simple tradition.
None of it looks particularly special from the outside. But all of it is honest. All of it fits the life I’ve settled into rather than trying to force a celebration that seems out of place.
Maybe that’s what this season should actually be about. Not performing the right traditions, but honoring what really matters to you. Whether that’s family connection when you are miles apart, maintaining simple routines, showing up for work, or just getting through December without pressure to be something you’re not.
Some people thrive on big family gatherings and elaborate traditions. Some people find meaning in religious contexts. And some love the decorations, the meals and the whole production.
If that’s you, that’s great. More power to you. Many of us maybe started off like that, but time or aging changed our circumstances, or we evolved along the way.
But if your holidays look nothing like that, because you’re working, or distant, or indifferent, or just doing your own quiet thing – that’s cool too. It doesn’t mean you’re missing out or failing at something fundamental.
It just means you’re living honestly within the circumstances you’ve got.
The Real Question
The holiday season will look however it looks for you this year. Maybe it’s family gatherings. Maybe it’s working through it. Maybe it’s video calls from far away. Maybe it’s voluntary solitude. Maybe it’s something in between.
The question isn’t whether your holidays look “right.” The question is whether they’re honest. Whether they fit your actual life and values instead of someone else’s expectations.
For me, that’s teaching on Christmas Day, walking in the cold on New Year’s Eve, maintaining simple contact with family, and being mostly okay with how undramatic it all is.
For you, it might be completely different. But if your holidays don’t match the script everyone assumes you’re following, maybe that’s not a problem. Maybe that’s just life being lived on your own terms, in your own way, with whatever meaning you choose to give it.
How do you experience the holidays?
Share your thoughts. I respond to every comment.
