When December Abroad Feels Different: Expat Holidays After a Year of Change

There are years when December arrives and you feel ready. You have your plans sorted, you know what you’re doing for Christmas, you feel grounded in your routine, and the whole month passes with a sense of calm anticipation.

And then there are the other years. The years when December feels a little heavier. The years when the whole second half of the year felt like a long plot twist you didn’t see coming. Nothing dramatic or catastrophic, just a bunch of small things that piled up without your permission.

Maybe it was a change at work that threw off your routine. A friendship abroad that shifted unexpectedly. A relationship that felt a little more fragile this year. Homesickness that lasted longer than usual. A bout of illness that took more time to recover from. A few sleepless weeks that left your mind foggy. Visa stress that kept your stomach in a knot. Or perhaps it was the slow realization that you’ve been running on low emotional battery for months.

And then all of a sudden, it’s December. The lights are going up. People are talking about holiday plans. Your home town is posting photos of decorated trees. And there you are, standing in the middle of your adopted city thinking, “I don’t feel ready for this season at all.”

I know that feeling well (a lot of expats do). It’s not the dramatic moments that wear you down. It’s the accumulation of the small ones. The things you thought you handled. The things you thought you were fine with. The things you brushed off because life abroad keeps moving, and you didn’t want to fall behind.

But December has a way of slowing everything down just long enough for your emotions to catch up.

You start to notice the fatigue you ignored in October, or the homesickness you pushed aside in August. You begin to admit that you’ve been holding your breath for longer than you realized, and now you’re seeing all the ways you stretched yourself thin without meaning to. And while the holidays are supposed to be light and festive, there is something about this time of year that brings these things to the surface.

When you live abroad, the holidays ask you to hold space for more things than most people see. You’re juggling two calendars, two cultures, two emotional worlds. You’re navigating traditions you grew up with and traditions you’re still learning to understand. You’re trying to stay connected to the people you love in a place that feels far away, and you’re doing it all while living in a country where even the background noise of December feels different from what your body remembers.

During years of big transition, that emotional load can become even more noticeable.

I remember one December in particular, a few years ago. It wasn’t a hard year in the obvious sense. Nothing dramatic had happened; I wasn’t dealing with heartbreak or illness or major life upheaval. But everything felt slightly off. Work had been unpredictable. The routines that usually grounded me were slowly slipping away. A few friendships felt different and I wasn’t sure why. I had been juggling too many things, trying to look composed on the outside while feeling scatterbrained on the inside.

When December arrived, all of it landed at once. Not heavily, just enough for me to feel it. I felt more tired than usual. More reflective. More aware of the distance between the life I had here and the life I had left behind.

It wasn’t sadness, and it wasn’t loneliness either. It was something more subtle and harder to describe. A kind of emotional residue that sat just under the surface. A feeling of wanting to set the whole year down somewhere but not knowing where.

For many expats, this is what the holidays can look like after a year of change. Not dramatic. Not overwhelming. Just slightly fragile in a way that’s hard to explain out loud.

And because expat life often demands us to be adaptable, you find yourself wondering why you’re not bouncing back faster. Why the decorations don’t lift your mood the way they usually do. Why planning holiday meals feels strangely tiring. And why every invitation and decision requires more emotional energy than it usually does.

But the truth is, emotional seasons don’t follow any calendar. Your inner world does not magically reorganize itself on December 1st. And when you’ve lived through a year of small shifts, your system, your mind, and your heart all feel it.

If this is your December, you’re not the only one feeling this way.

Sometimes the end of the year abroad brings up things you didn’t have the space to notice earlier. You slow down a little and suddenly the small moments from the past twelve months feel closer. You start to see how much you carried without realizing it, and how long you’ve been moving forward without really stopping to check in with yourself.

And in that slower pace, things that felt manageable in the moment start to look different. You notice the stress you shrugged off back in the spring, or the small disappointments you didn’t really sit with over the summer. You see the ways you kept going out of necessity, and because of that you begin to understand why your “holiday spirit” feels a little off this year.

Some years abroad bring big adventures. Some bring joy and expansion. Some bring stability. And some bring about the slow, steady work of becoming someone who can navigate all of it.

The holiday season during a year like this can still be meaningful, just in a different way. You might find comfort in smaller moments instead of big events. You might feel closer to the few people who showed up for you this year. And you might feel more grounded doing something simple, like making a meal you love or walking through your city at night with warm gloves and an old scarf that feels familiar against your neck.

You might even notice that this version of Christmas shows you something important about who you are becoming: a version of you who is learning to be gentle with yourself. A version of you who can hold both gratitude and fatigue at the same time. A version of you who doesn’t need everything to feel perfect all the time.

One of the things I’ve learned about expat life is that growth often happens during the years that look uneventful on paper. The years where nothing big happened, but you still changed. The years where the emotional load taught you how to listen to yourself more closely. The years where you learned your limits and built resilience without even trying.

If this is one of those years for you, I hope you give yourself permission to experience the holidays in a way that aligns with where you are right now. Maybe that means keeping things simple or saying no to plans that feel draining. Maybe it means finding comfort in small rituals and allowing yourself to miss home without judging the feeling. Maybe it means celebrating in a way that doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s version of December.

Whatever the holidays look like for you this year, know that you are allowed to feel tired, or relieved, or grateful, or even unsure. You are allowed to feel all of it without needing to justify any of it.

And years from now, you may look back at this December and realize it wasn’t a season of failure or confusion. It was a season of becoming. A season where you sifted through the emotional leftovers of a long year and learned something important about yourself.

A season that didn’t sparkle, but still mattered.

Wherever you are and whatever this year brought you, I hope you find small moments of warmth and rest. I hope you feel proud of yourself for making it through a year of change. And I hope you remember that you don’t have to feel fully settled for this season to hold meaning.

You are still growing into your life abroad. And that is something worth honoring.

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If this article echoed your own December abroad -- the tired moments, the slow-building emotions, or the feeling of carrying more than you realized -- you’re in good company.

I help expat women find balance and clarity during seasons like this through my 1:1 integrative wellness and life transition coaching. If you’re looking for support as you settle into your life abroad, click on the “Contact” menu tab to book your free discovery call today.

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