Tildes “orphans”, what do you do for Christmas?

So I'm queer and don't have a relationship with my family. I live with a lady whose birthday is near Christmas and another who's a witch who observes the solstice so I try to plan out a combined celebration. There's not usually gift giving but we try to invite friends over, I make a nice big holiday meal with sides and desserts and stuff; we grow our own little pine tree and bring it indoors for the holidays; we drink (mead) and burn some incense. And as a Lutheran I always go to the Christmas Eve service at my church. So we have our own little traditions that are really fun -- Part of being an adult is realizing that if you want to have celebrations and traditions you have to be the one doing the work to uphold them, like the boring ass scheduling and inviting and meal planning and budgeting work. For me at least it's worth it

Context: I'm just someone that lives alone and doesn't have access to a family to spend christmas with.

I love to pretend that 'it's just another day, so don't worry about it'; but truthfully spending christmas alone doesn't always feel great. The best thing I've learned to do is to make a plan for the day. It doesn't need to be complicated, just something structured to pass the time.

Usually I'll do some cooking. A roast dinner keeps me busy and the result is well worth it. I'll typically plan in time to read and then watch a movie in the evening. I usually make an old fashioned and have some snacks.

Ultimately I want to give myself a good honest response for when people ask; 'How was your christmas?' 'Oh it was good, I cooked a roast dinner, had a whiskey, enjoyed watching some movies. It was a nice day.' feels better than a vague 'it was fine' and everyone feeling awkward because it doesn't feel true.

Context: I'm Jewish on my mom's side but not my dad's, I've always considered myself Jewish (though not particularly observant) , but we also celebrated Christmas with family on my dad's side and during childhood it was a very important day for me (cousins, presents, decoration, cookies, etc).

I haven't celebrated Christmas since undergrad (and even then I was always on campus for it). Honestly it's always a bit sad, less so over time. I try to spend the day chatting with online friends, who span many time zones and so I always have some people "around" who are in their wind-down-from-being-social period. Christmas cards can be nice, I used to have a tradition of hanging up all of the cards I got on the wall behind my desk. Write to people and request cards! (Potentially even from Tildes people, though obviously be careful giving out your address)

Most important thing though I think, is have a (fun) plan for the day and stick to it. My plan is usually audiobooks and jigsaw puzzles (this is usually my plan any day I have free though). Find something hobby-related you can spend the day doing thatll be fun, if that's a soldering project or a yarn project or etc. Schedule phone calls for a specific time of day, don't just say "oh yeah we'll call sometime that day." And be cozy! Warm PJs all day, hot chocolate, tea, etc. Being physically warm and cozy does a lot, especially in the middle of the winter.

I live alone, which suits me quite well. My closest family has been travelling around the country for the past nearly 4 years, so it's pretty seldom that we're together at this point. In past years I have travelled to meet them if they're settling in a place for a while or other family, but I usually use Christmas day as a travelling day since the flights are cheaper and the roads are clear.

The social group in my apartment building gathers in the lobby with food and drinks on Christmas day. Last year I baked cookies and they were received well, so I'll be doing those again over the days leading up to it (I simply can't bear doing the baking and the decorating on the same day). Beyond that, I'm sure there will be lots of time to just relax or get out and walk.

Second Jew chiming in: It's always kind of awkward because of how the world basically stops. I could technically work the week between it and New Years, but nobody else will be there, so I'm basically forced to take vacation days at work or be sitting around getting nothing done because there is noone to answer questions or code review.

A few times, I've gone visit a orthodox Jewish friend of mine that week just to avoid sitting at home doing nothing. She home schools her son, and they actually make a point to do ordinary schoolwork that day.

christmas is just another day and i barely notice any difference.

i usually end up with ramen or pho and do whatever i’d normally do that night.

i only celebrate if im living with someone who wants to. for bite i am not, so i don’t. i think its a terrible holiday — but that’s my own thing.

Go hard on hygge. Make everything as cosy and as pleasant and specifically personalised as possible.

As a (very) young family in a foreign country we decided it was the perfect time to make our very own christmas traditions... and so we did. We spent the next few years decorating the house our way, giving gifts that were specifically designed to be read/eaten/played on Xmas day, cooking food that only we liked to eat, and generally having a great time incorporating our own preferences into the day.

it worked incredibly well, generated some very special - if slightly unorthodox - memories and... also made it quite difficult to re-integrate into the extended family christmas circus when we eventually returned home. In the end we had to sacrifice christmas day to the rest of the family, and moved our own celebration one day over - and now Boxing Day is unquestionably the best day of the year.

Context: Retired, no kids, no family close by.

Christmas has become an insignificant holiday for me. It's just another day. What family I have left sends me a gift or two, and I always send my brother one, but we've not spent Christmas together in many years. I tend to visit them on Thanksgiving instead.

Last year, I think I spent most of the Christmas holiday season writing. That novel is still unfinished, and it pokes at me from time to time to get off my butt and finish. I've finally got another section forming in my head, so maybe I'll get back to work.

Videogames!

Last year I was dating someone and they had massive family drama around Christmas, I was happy to be on my own, lol

Most years I'm at the pc, enjoying a game or reading. A few years ago family visited, it was nice but I was also relieved when I had another week on my own after they left before work started again.

I grew up a particular flavor of fundie Christian that didn't celebrate, so... it's meaningless to me. I celebrated for the first time when I was 14 but over the last 30+ years I've officially celebrated like... 5 times? Usually with extended family.

Me and my closest friend try to stay together to play any installation of Hitman and eat well.

I say try since we both prefer working, sometimes even picking up extra shifts, at our respective jobs since it's more than double pay.

We've been doing it on and off for 20yrs.

Sometimes other obligations or funs get in the way too, but it doesn't matter, there will always be next year :)

I also aim to celebrate the winter solstice with a get together and a fire. It's nice, and part of my vision to understand and be with the passing of time.

I've been trying to come up with a decent description of how it feels to not celebrate Christmas in a Christmas-celebrating-culture and the closest I've come is imagening the calm and emptiness of going out at 5 in the morning in spring, when its empty and quiet (besides some bird song and a few distant cars) that amazing feeling of having the world to yourself. Only this time its cold, wet and dark and everyone else is being hugged by a loved one in front of a fire eating well and having a good time.

I think I did a version of Festivus mostly as a joke when I lived alone, just propping up an unadorned metal pole in the corner of a room. I live with an SO now, and we both see Christmas as another day, but we do enjoy seeing Christmas decorations around the neighborhood.

Reading Wikipedia's page on Festivus liked above, I didn't know the original tradition involved a clock in a bag nailed to the wall.

The real symbol of the holiday was a clock that my dad put in a bag and nailed to the wall every year...I don't know why I don't know what it means, he would never tell me. He would always say, 'That's not for you to know'.

I don't know what that means either, but...I'd interpret this as a reminder to at least sometimes live in the now and in contentment without fretting about the future.

This very situation has happened to me twice, both times from moving someplace far away and not having the finances to return home from Christmas. And honestly, it's resulted in some of my favorite Christmases. I totally get where your SO is coming from too. I've tried not celebrating holidays after moving, and it just makes me feel worse. The short answer is you have to make yourself new traditions, and it's helpful if you're feeling brave enough to host acquaintances.

Move 1: Moved across the US after college for a job where I did not know anyone. Only about 4 months before Christmas too, so a lot of the locals I met already had solid plans. Christmas Eve was the big dinner in my household growing up, so decided to go out and eat a fancy dinner somewhere. That was a lot of fun, the restaurant was decked out for Christmas, had fake snow falling in the windows, and a really talented pianist playing jazz covers of Christmas songs. Then for the next day, I asked anyone I knew in town if they had Christmas plans, and if they wanted to come to my place where we would make fun foods and just hangout. It turns out I did have a couple of friends (we weren't close at the time, but became good friends in part cause of this) who could not go back home because they worked for tech companies and were on-call. This ended up turning into a huge thing, where every year me and this original group of friends would invite over anyone who didn't have plans for Christmas, and everyone would bring something they liked or maybe a food they missed for Christmas. I met my future partner several years after we started this, and he enjoyed it so much that we still kept doing this for Christmas day even though he has local family.

Move 2: This move was only a few years ago, and to a new country on a different continent. Because I remembered my experience from move 1, I was confident I could make this work. The move was to England, and the first thing we did was look up local Christmas traditions, cause I figured now was the chance to try things I'd only ever read about. Christmas eve we decided to try eating food that people eat here for Christmas. Went to the grocery stores and got mince pies, christmas pudding, ham, nice cheeses, sweets, and other snacky things. Then made ourselves some fancy charcuterie boards and lived it up. We had heard that going to the pub is a common tradition here too, and our favorite one was planning to be open for a few hours on Christmas day. So we went, chatted with regulars and strangers who wandered in, had a great time, then went home to eat more snacks and call our families. Again, we've enjoyed going to the pub so much, it's something that we continue to do and this time we invite friends we've made here to do it with us.

It can be really fun to make your own Christmas traditions. I've had to do it with other holidays here in England too (Thanksgiving and Halloween), and it's so totally worth it. Sometimes it's scary to invite people to do stuff with us, but people are generally pleasantly surprised to be invited to something, and it's resulted in friendships for us. We do miss our families of course. There are times I still really wish I was spending the holidays with them. But video calls also help a lot. That is something we make sure we do during the holidays as well. It makes a big difference.

EDIT: I'll add that the reason we chose to go to the pub instead of repeating hosting people for Christmas Day for the second move, was in part because everyone else we asked already had plans. Definitely have a backup plan if you decide you want to host, but everyone you ask already has plans.

I don't really do much over christmas, I enjoy the decoration and the joy around me, but usually work over christmas, it's calm days, and pretty nice, over the holiday itself I just try to be kind with myself, maybe take a trip to the christmas market, I don't make any big deal of it, as I don't really feel like putting up decorations and taking them down again does much for me. So mostly just a normal day, maybe taking a little outing, if I feel up for it.

My wife and I had a tradition for a while where we would pick a country semi-randomly in December, lightly research what its end-of-year celebrations are like, and try to replicate some aspects of them at home. It mainly meant cooking and baking new dishes, but possibly also coming up with some simple decorations, listening to new music, watching new films, and learning a few words of a foreign language. I'm sure lots of mistakes were made and plenty of culture was appropriated, but it was fun and we learnt more about the world around us.

We have been talking about reviving that tradition, or coming up with some other end-of-year ritual, since otherwise the holidays are just regular days for us that pass by quite unnoticed. And I feel that the older we get, the more value we see in rituals.

Instead of a modern day country and tradition, you could also pick something like "Shakespearean England" or "ancient Rome". The world is your oyster. And with many countries quite literally so -- one thing I learnt is that oysters are a surprisingly popular end-of-year dish.