With another Christmas around the corner, spending it outside your home country might be challenging, especially if you will be doing it for the first time.
With many international travel restrictions, your Christmas will not be filled with those festive family traditions and many visitors from home.
However, the idea of spending your Christmas as an ex-pat doesn’t necessarily have to be a boring – don’t just get the holiday blues yet. Apart from getting the best insurance plan, the following tips for digital nomads will also enable you able to survive the holiday and even make it more fun:
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1. Treat Yourself
Just because you will spend Christmas overseas doesn’t mean you cannot go out alone. If you’re staying in one of the hostels abroad, they might have Christmas spirit. However, if you stay in a home, you may get yourself a Christmas tree for the room.
Christmas is normally a time for giving – so ensure you give something to yourself. At least get some gifts, buy a new book, and treat yourself to a spa day.
2. Embrace New Cultural Experience
Chances are, you live in a nation with completely different customs and cultures to what you knew and grew up with. Probably you’re learning the differences between these customs and cultures, and Christmas tends to be a perfect time to experience this.
Be sure to speak to your new colleagues and friends about how they usually celebrate Christmas time and share what you do back home.
For instance, in Argentina, the celebrations are on Christmas Eve instead of the actual Christmas day people know. In some countries, people give gifts of books on Christmas Eve and spend their night reading and eating chocolates.
3. Keep Some Traditions
Although you might not do everything you usually do for holidays, you may do several things you love the most.
Pick several traditions, which have the most meaning and bring you back the best memories. Probably you prepare your mom’s best dishes or bake your grandma’s traditional Christmas cookies.
You may come to realize that small things like this make Christmas abroad for expats special, exciting, and memorable.
4. Avoid Social Media
If you intend to contact the individuals, you miss a lot, then go for it. However, avoid going to social media if it’s for seeing and spying on other individuals having a great time while you’re not.
Detox and unplug for several days from the down-putting, subtle nerve-wracking, and mentally exhausting impact of social media. After taking that break, you will be able to see the world with some:
- Self-kindness
- Optimism
- Newly-discovered clarity
5. Feast with Your Friends
How can you bring Christmas traditions from home to the place where you currently live? Well, cooking remains a perfect way to get in that spirit.
You can go wild by mixing and matching some old traditions into new ones. For instance, to make the holiday so Christmassy and homely, you may decide to have the weirdest feast of Swiss, Finnish, Swedish, and Australian food.
This year’s Christmas can also be different for most individuals. So gather random neighbors and friends, even it means having one evening of celebration.
6. Have a Budget and Stick to It
Think of what you want to spend this Christmas, putting entertainment, gifts, and travel into consideration so you can make plans properly.
Holidays might be costly for everyone and even more so for expatriates away from their homes. Normally, you will decide what you wish to do and later determine what it might cost you.
It will be a great relief to put some parameters around the holiday spending, and who knows what creative ideas you might come up with.
Generally, the more creative you become when it comes to spending, the more enjoyable your Christmas holiday will be.
7. Volunteer
Whether abroad or at home, giving a helping hand to other individuals is part of celebrating and having a great Christmas.
Even non-Christmas-themed projects, such as assisting at animal shelters or volunteering to clean up a beach, can bring special joy.
8. Recreate the Holiday Oversea
The adage that there is no place like home for the Christmas holidays is true. So you can recreate holiday overseas in your current home by preparing a family dish, you always make during Christmas.
Although you will be physically apart, recreating the holiday overseas will connect you even closer with your traditions, family, and friends.
9. Avoid Idealizing
It can be tempting when you get separated from your old home to recall the good memories. There are a lot of things you can compare your host country with your motherland, and find that your home country remains the best.
However, if you left it for a good reason, you can also look for things you like about your new home. Shift towards a more realistic view of your new home and take note of the things you appreciate.
Closing Remarks!
Christmas is one of the merriest moments of the year. Even when you’re all alone in a new country, you can make it the best holiday ever.
Your decision to start a new life overseas is in the best interest of your entire family. If you and your family start to feel lonely, you may try some of the above tips, if not all.