Studying abroad is an amazing time in student’s life. But there is no denying that all the moments of this experience won’t replace spending holidays at home with friends and family.
Whether or not the holidays are big like Christmas or minor (huge to me, personally) Halloween,not being there for holidays will bum you out. Trust me, I know. Having been abroad for an entire year kind of prepared me for this time around and I hop e that if you have found this, it will help you too.
Studying in the fall you will be missing Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the winter holidays, if you choose not to go home. Not being with your friends and loved ones during these holidays will be rough, espeically if you have tradtions for each.
I have made it a traditions in the last few years, that I try to accomplish every year. And this fall was no different. I like to visit the Tanaka Farms pumpkin patch in Irvine with my younger sister. We go and take a tour of the farm, snap photos, eat snacks, and carve a pumpkin later that day or the next. This year, my flatmates and I mentioned being sad missing the pumpkin patch experience while in Scotland, until one of my flatmates took it upon herself to find one. So we all got to pick our own potatoes, turnips, and take pictures. (As carrying home a pumpkin for each of us would have been a nightmare, as well as disposing of the pumpkin later.)
Of course it is very easy to say ‘make new memories with your flatmates/people in your program,’ but the reality is that can be very hard for some. This is espceially true if you are an older student, a nontraditional student, in a course where you have been plopped into a multi year course where all the other students know each other. The biggest difficulty I have had in the UK is trying to make friends with people in my classes. This is because I entered third and fourth year courses. So it felt really hard trying to make friends with people who have worked together for years.
My advice: join a society that supports your interests. This will allows you to meet people who share interests with you making conversions easier to start. This also works if your flatmates and you don’t get along. Don’t force yourself to hangout and make plans with people who make you feel uneasy, this is just as much as your time abroad as it is theirs. Don’t be afraid to venture outside of your classes and flat to make friends.
Thanksgiving was the next big holiday our flat spent together. Needless to say, we weren’t celebrating the genocide of the native populations in the Americas, as the holiday would have us. We instead spent the day laughing, video calling our families back home, and running around for our big shop. (Our two mini fridges wouldn’t fit all the food we needed, so the shopping for Thanksgiving had to be done the day of.) While we were far from home, we got into the spirit of the holidays by playing our favorite holiday songs, telling stories, and eating each other’s favorite foods.
My advice: If you are the minority in your group of friends/flat and are the only one who celebrates Thanksgiving you can invite others to a meal. In my experience my flatmates/friends were excited to see what all the buzz around Thanksgiving is. We all pitched in and pooled our money to buy food and drink.
When asked ‘why’ or ‘the reason behind thanksgiving’ use this to your advantage to share the histories of the Native American tribes, if you know them or do some research for the inevitable questions, and ways to support the Native American communities. (I usually direct people to @lilnativeboy on instagram and twitter.) I also use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to raise questions about colonization, and to ask people to reconsider how they process traditions and history.
Now, the winter holidays. They will be the most difficult to handle if you aren’t going home. When I studied in Hull, I could not afford to go home, but my partner at the time decided to visit me. That was a bad Christmas, everything was rushed and I didn’t feel happy. However, this time around I feel so much better about the holiday season. And if you are wondering why it is because I have reconstructed how I view the holidays.
My advice: Don’t put huge expectations on the holiday season while abroad, it will lead to FOMO or disappointment regardless of how great you holidays turn out. If you have the opportunity to go home, great! But if you don’t, don’t stress. Fight the urge to think of being away from loved ones, take the day off from social media if it helps. However, remember they are only a call away to cheer you up.
While being away from home during holidays will seem tough, it is only for a short amount of time. The silver lining to this experience is getting to see how other parts of the world celebrate their own holidays or the ones we share. And remember you’ll be home the next time your favorite holidays come around.
Isaias Dassum 