The First Christmas You Spend Abroad: The One That Teaches You Who You’re Becoming

The first Christmas you spend abroad without going “home” has a way of lingering in your memory.

At first, it feels like a practical decision. You check flight prices, look at your calendar, talk it through with family, and decide it makes more sense to stay put this year. And for a little while, you might even feel okay with it.

Then comes December, and you realize that the season feels different in ways that you didn’t quite expect.

The streets are filled with lights and Christmas decorations. Bakeries begin to put out holiday treats you’ve never seen before. Everyone's conversations turn to plans that don’t necessarily involve you and in the midst of this, you become aware that things feel different here, like you’re living between memories of what you used to do and the reality of what you’re doing now.

I remember the first Christmas I spent in France. That year, I didn’t fly back home, and I thought I was handling it just fine. I made sure my schedule was filled and stayed as busy as I could. I kept telling myself it's all part of living abroad but something didn’t quite feel right. I wasn’t miserable or lonely, just feeling a little strange…like the whole world was harmonious and vibrating on the same wavelength, but I was humming along off-key.

What surprised me were the things that made me feel homesick; they weren’t the obvious Christmas moments like family dinners or opening presents. It happened in the more subtle moments that would sneak up on me while I was out and about living my daily life. Watching families choose a Christmas tree on the sidewalk. Hearing a familiar carol sung on a street. Standing in a shop, trying to recall if certain stores closed early on Christmas Eve or stayed open for last-minute purchases. Even the holiday commercials on TV seemed strange. The traditions had the same shape, but not quite the same texture.

That’s the part no one really prepares you for. Spending Christmas abroad isn’t always about missing home in obvious ways. Often, it’s about realizing your life is changing while everyone back home seems to be staying the same. It’s about realizing you're building memories in a place where you don’t yet have many to look back on. It’s about learning how to hold two feelings at the same time: gratitude for where you are, and the nostalgia for where you came from.

In those early years, I made every effort to recreate the Christmas I knew. I baked the same cookies and tried to watch the same holiday movies. I attempted familiar recipes using ingredients I had to look up word by word. Sometimes I succeeded, and sometimes I failed. Sometimes the butter worked differently and sometimes the oven was hotter than it should have been. Occasionally, I caught myself questioning why I was trying so hard to replicate something identical in a place where it would never be the same.

But recreating the familiar is often how we anchor ourselves in the beginning, especially when everything else around us feels so new. Familiar rituals can ground us at a time when life is shifting and our surroundings are constantly asking us to adapt.

When Christmas Eve arrived that year, I remember walking through the town and watching people rushing home with bottles of wine and boxes of pastries. The air was cold but calm, despite the hurried pace. And then, out of the blue and for reasons I still can’t quite explain, I felt the pressure ease. I no longer felt the need to try and make the day look a certain way. I stopped comparing it to what it “should” be and just felt present…not fully settled, but not fighting the moment like I had been.

That first Christmas abroad taught me something that took a while to sink in. You don’t have to resolve every feeling for the season to be meaningful. Missing home doesn’t cancel out the life you’re building, and feeling unsteady doesn’t erase the courage it took to move. The emotions don’t compete with each other; they just exist side by side for a while.

The holiday season tends to amplify whatever you’re already feeling. Joy feels brighter. Nostalgia hits harder. And when you’re living abroad, all of that is layered on top of the ongoing process of adjustment. But woven into that mix is a special kind of growth - the kind you don’t necessarily notice right away.

Spending Christmas abroad has a way of showing you how you react when everything familiar is stripped away. It teaches you how to create meaning without relying on the familiar rituals that you had growing up. It shows you how to let your life expand, without abandoning where you came from.

Years later, the moments I remember most from that first Christmas abroad aren’t the big ones. It’s the small details I can recall. The smell of the bakery on Christmas morning. The sound of church bells echoing through the streets. Wrapping gifts on a tiny table while trying not to cry or laugh at myself. None of it was perfect, but it didn’t have to be.

If you are preparing to spend your own Christmas abroad for the first time, you may notice some similar feelings rising to the surface: an acute sense of distance, a comparison to what everyone else is doing, homesickness that doesn’t have an easy explanation. That’s just part of the process of building a life in a new country.

With time, these seasons become reference points. Not moments of failure or loss, but moments that show you how you learned to adapt and find your footing, and how you began to create new traditions that fit the life you’re living now, rather than the one you left behind.

And years from now, you might look back on this Christmas the way I look back on mine. Not with sadness, but with a gentle appreciation for the version of myself who was trying, learning, and finding her way in a new place.

Wherever you spend the holidays this year, I hope you experience moments of warmth and connection. I hope you feel proud of yourself for building a life far from home. And I hope that one day, you’ll look back on this Christmas not for what it lacked, but for the blessings it offered you.

Because the holidays abroad don’t need to look like anyone else’s to be meaningful. They just need to reflect where you are now.

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If this Christmas abroad has stirred up a mix of nostalgia, distance, or reflection, it can help to have support that meets you where you are. I work with expat women who are searching for more clarity, steadiness, and a deeper sense of home within themselves as they navigate life overseas.

If you’d like to explore whether this kind of support could help you move into the new year with more ease, you can book a free discovery call through the Contact tab in the menu above.

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