For lots of us, Christmas time is a time to be with family. Whatever your culture, background or religion, family usually holds a special importance in people's hearts, and even more so at Christmas. I don't know what it is about Christmas that makes this even more poignant; maybe the winter holiday draws people home, maybe you have Christmassy family traditions that date back many years, maybe Christmas just holds it's mark as the one time of the year when the family gets together.
However, sometimes, being with your family at Christmas isn't possible and there are many potential reasons for this. It could be that you don't celebrate Christmas, or any other traditions during this month, so life simply goes on as normal. Perhaps you or others in your family will be working through Christmas so won't be able to be together. Maybe you don't feel close to your family, either emotionally or, as with me, geographically, so being together is literally impossible. In any of these cases it can be very difficult to get through Christmas. You know that the rest of the world will be enjoying the festive season with their families, Facebook will be constantly shoving photos of smiley, happy people in your face and you might feel more alone than ever.
My family is distributed all over the world. My Mom lives in Quebec, my Dad in Liverpool, my brother and sister, niece and nephew in different parts of the UK, my last remaining grandparent in Ireland, two aunts in different parts of Canada and another in Brighton, and I myself live in Germany with my boyfriend, who's family is also spread all over the United States. So, where to spend Christmas!? Wherever we go, we are bound to be missing someone! We will always be far away from some of our family.
So, how can we cope best when our families are, for whatever reason, far away from us this Christmas time? Well, luckily we live in a wonderful age of technology - we've got Skype, facetime, whatsapp, Facebook messenger and a million other ways to be in contact. I know people in long-distance relationships who sometimes just leave Skype on all day, so it always feels like the other person is in the room! I know it's not the same as being there in person, but knowing that your family is just at the other end of a call makes a huge difference. Also, I always find that having a plan for how you are going to spend the actual days of Christmas really helps. Keep yourself busy doing things that you love, and then you'll have less time to feel miserable and jealous of all of those family pics that keep coming up on your timeline.
And to those who find it difficult to get along with their families, or for whom a fight within the family has stopped them from being together this Christmas, I also know how painful this can be and what I can say is this; whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them about things or you disagree, whether they said things that have offended you or upset you, for better or worse those people are your family. Remember that we all say stupid things that we don't mean from time to time, especially when we might be hurting ourselves, and it doesn't make us bad people. But if ever there was a time to reach out to someone in your family - it doesn't have to be a big grand gesture, just simply saying 'I love you for being my family' will do - I reckon Christmas is the time to do it.
The most important thing, though, is not to get down about being far from family. Christmas will come and go, and there will be many more to come. If we are able to tell our families that we love them and that we are thinking of them, that will mean most, whether it's Christmas you celebrate or Hanukkah or any other tradition. It might feel like you are the only one who is dealing with being far away from family, in whichever way, but I absolutely promise that you're not. Sometimes, life just calls for a really strong heart and lots of courage; let this be one of those times.
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