One of the highlights of the fall season is enjoying fall festivities. Many celebrations worldwide occur during the fall, ensuring we end the year with joy, family, and gratitude. Thanksgiving is one of the fall festivities that allows us to gather with family with pleasure and show appreciation. Thanksgiving is one of the most famous American holidays, and many Americans rank it as their first or second favorite holiday. Thanksgiving, like many holidays, centers around family gatherings. Hence, many travel to be with their families during this holiday season. In 2023, an estimated 55.5 million people traveled to be with their families to enjoy the fall festivity. However, not everyone does celebrate with their families. Some people cannot celebrate with their families for many reasons, including being in the military, not having a good relationship with their family members, or being miles away from work or studies. In this post, we will discuss how to spend Thanksgiving alone while working or studying abroad in places where they may not also celebrate Thanksgiving. Here are 7 Ideas for a Solo Thanksgiving while Abroad! Before diving into these ideas, let’s discuss the battling feeling of being alone for Thanksgiving as a traveler.
Combating The Feeling of Being Alone for Thanksgiving As a Traveler
Traveling has many perks. It allows you to discover the world, see places you thought you could only see on TV, and build many friendships. Traveling makes us self-aware, builds cultural awareness, and provides many opportunities, especially when looking for employment. However, some moments may not feel so good. Traveling makes us vulnerable to the unknown, where we do not have the complete picture of things because every day is a learning opportunity. Traveling gives us the perfect analogy to what life is. However, we tend to feel the challenges more because we are away from our usual communities, support systems, and normalcy. There are moments when being alone can lead to loneliness, especially during the holidays. Being away during famous American holidays like Thanksgiving has challenged me as an American traveler. Although my immigrant family did not have a big feast during Thanksgiving, I enjoyed visiting friends and participating in the Thanksgiving joy.
While studying abroad in France, I realized the void of not being home for the holidays. Not seeing the signs of Thanksgiving in French streets made it challenging to transition, as I am used to Thanksgiving being the holiday ringer for the Christmas season. However, being alone for a holiday like Thanksgiving, especially when abroad in a country that does not celebrate the holiday, did not mean I could not bring Thanksgiving to my French experience! Hence, I discovered the beauty of traveling. Traveling allows us to immerse ourselves in the local culture and brings our cultures to the place we visit, especially when you are living abroad for studies or because you got an international job offer. Being alone during a family-oriented holiday does not have to be lonely. With creativity, courage, and determination, you can enjoy a solo Thanksgiving or any holiday abroad away from your usual environment. Here are 7 Ideas for Enjoying Thanksgiving alone when abroad.
7 Ways to Spend Thanksgiving Alone Abroad
- Practice Self-Care
One of the best ways to celebrate the holidays abroad is by practicing self-care. Travelers living abroad for studies or work who cannot travel back home to be with their families during family gatherings can feel lonely. Therefore, practicing self-care is crucial. But what is self-care, and how do you practice it? Self-care is taking care of your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Practicing self-care means actively taking action and doing things to better your bodily, psychological, and emotional health, which is crucial when you are alone abroad, especially during the holiday season. Many people practice self-care by making and following a routine that makes them happy. Your self-care routine abroad does not need to differ from when you are back home. How do you take care of yourself when you are at home? What activities do you do for yourself? Do you like doing yoga, having a hair wash day, meditating, or cooking your favorite food? Whatever your self-care routine is, doing it abroad helps you have a sense of normalcy. It is your way to gift yourself a time of self-patience, gratitude, and mindfulness.
Using the holiday to pamper yourself is another way to celebrate and show appreciation during this special day. Being alone gives you the time you need to check in on yourself. Sometimes, when with people, we forget to satisfy our needs. During the holidays, we tend to busy our minds to pleasing others. On a holiday like Thanksgiving, which includes cooking and preparing a meal that will satisfy others, we forget to breathe and care for ourselves because we are busy thinking about making the perfect dinner that everyone will enjoy. Hence, having a solo Thanksgiving abroad can be the ideal opportunity to take care of yourself. Being away from your family is your chance to relax and focus on yourself, your needs, and your self-care. Therefore, do not despair if you are abroad or away from your family during Thanksgiving or other holidays. If you find yourself in a place where Thanksgiving is not a holiday and you have to go to work or school, practicing self-care in such an environment is the perfect way to end your day and commemorate the spirit of Thanksgiving.
- Explore & Travel
Following up on the earlier point about the importance of practicing self-care, an excellent way to enhance your experience during a solo Thanksgiving is to embark on an exploration or a mini-trip. While self-care often involves creating a soothing environment within your home, exploring new places invites you to celebrate a solo Thanksgiving in an exciting and adventurous manner. Instead of staying indoors, consider venturing into a different city or participating in an activity that you are interested in. You can use the holiday to do something you’ve always wanted to try but never had the chance to. Being alone doesn’t confine you to your house, scrolling through social media and watching others enjoy their family gatherings. Instead, it opens doors to new experiences waiting outside your front door.
Some activities to consider during Thanksgiving include hiking on a scenic trail, where natural beauty can lift your spirits, or visiting a local arcade for nostalgic fun and thrilling games. Cinemas often showcase a range of films that can provide entertainment and a welcome escape. You could also explore museums, attend local festivals, or try culinary classes highlighting regional cuisines. Stepping outside your comfort zone to celebrate Thanksgiving can be incredibly liberating. It provides a beautiful distraction from homesickness, immersing yourself in the present moment and enjoying what the locals offer. Engaging with a new environment helps cultivate a sense of adventure and provides an opportunity to create lasting memories, all while you savor the unique offerings of your new surroundings. Hence, gift yourself a new adventure during this solo Thanksgiving holiday abroad.
- Cooking
Cooking is my favorite way to spend time alone, mainly when I live abroad during the holiday season. Cooking has many benefits. First, it is more healthy to cook for yourself than to eat out. When cooking for yourself, you are mindful of what you put inside your body. By choosing and measuring the ingredients, you practice self-care because you make choices that will make you happy and contribute to your health. Another advantage of cooking for yourself is that it is cheaper than eating out. You do not have to overspend to enjoy a solo Thanksgiving dinner. My all-time favorite reason for loving cooking is that it allows me to try various recipes. I use cooking to immerse myself in new cultures by googling recipes of the local dishes I want to try. I also use this time to cook my family’s favorite dish. It is a time for me to bring my family traditions to life. When I cook, I remember my favorite moments cooking with my mother. I play my favorite music and have a celebration filled with good memories, enabling me to not feel alone during the holiday.
Cooking is also a form of therapy and an expression of self-love. It is an art that allows one to step into a sanctuary and escape the pressures of everyday life. Simple things like chopping vegetables or smelling the delicious food you created can be meditative, allowing you to live in the moment and appreciate the work of your hands. The mindfulness that comes with cooking helps to alleviate stress, giving you an outlet to nurture your body and mind. As an art, it allows you to be creative and express yourself through the ingredients you choose to use. By experimenting with flavors and ingredients, you reflect on your mood and show your personality. Trying new recipes or putting a personal twist on your family recipes gives you an outlet to focus on creating a masterpiece and forget that you are alone during Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving with your family, you focus on pleasing others, but here, you focus on yourself and are not afraid of receiving judgment. If you make a mistake, you are not beholden to anyone, which is the beauty of having time alone, especially on the holidays. Cooking alone during Thanksgiving for yourself is more than just preparing a meal. It is a form of celebrating life and creating your tradition. It allows you to be in the present, nurture your body and mind, and combat the feeling of being alone and away from your family on a family-centered holiday like Thanksgiving.
- Host a Potluck Dinner
Celebrating Thanksgiving abroad does not mean you have to be alone. You may not have your friends and family from home, but that doesn’t mean you cannot make new friends and celebrate the holidays with them. As an international student abroad, you are more likely to make friends with other international students. Being among people who understand the dilemma of being away from their families during essential holidays will help you not to feel alone when Thanksgiving comes. Hence, you can host a potluck event and feast with your friends. Doing this will allow you to enjoy the holiday with your chosen family, and it is an opportunity to have them bring their cultures to the table through their dishes. Since other countries also celebrate Thanksgiving, such as Canada, part of Australia, Grenada, and Saint Lucia, you may find other students or colleagues looking to celebrate Thanksgiving with others. Therefore, you will have a community of people to gather and have a potluck dinner. Whether your community celebrates the holiday or not, hosting a potluck event will enable you to have a dinner like the one you are used to back home.
Hosting a Thanksgiving dinner where you invite people you befriend abroad is a great way to bring your culture to the local community. Sharing food allows us to build a cultural understanding of one another. For example, being away from the United States does not mean you cannot bring the U.S. with you; that goes for anyone living in a country outside of theirs. Therefore, using holidays such as Thanksgiving to invite people to partake in the traditions of your homeland allows you to have others learn about your country and its traditions. A potluck dinner will enable others to contribute to that sense of community and cultural understanding. You will have a chance to learn the origins of the dishes your guests will bring, and you will teach them about the dishes you include in the Thanksgiving feast. Coming from a Congolese immigrant family, where our Thanksgiving dishes vary from others, helps demonstrate to my foreign acquaintance the diversity in the U.S. and teaches them that no Thanksgiving dinner is the same. Having this moment of fellowship helps you not be alone or feel alone and allows you to reflect on the beauty of global traditions, which, in essence, displays the spirit of Thanksgiving.
- Reach out to Family
Another way to celebrate Thanksgiving alone while abroad is by connecting with your family. Being physically alone and away from your sense of normalcy does not mean you have to be alone. Through the help of technology, you and your family can host an “e-Thanksgiving” dinner. Technology has provided us with many benefits, and one benefit is that it has allowed travelers to bridge the emotional gap that distance creates. Because of Apps like Zoom, WeChat, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, you do not have to be alone for the holidays. Therefore, you can host an online Thanksgiving dinner and celebrate with family members in various parts of the world. Doing so allows you to engage with your entire family, share stories, and connect despite the miles between you all. You can have a transformative experience through video calls sharing moments like cooking together, decorating, and setting up the tables. You can exchange recipes and ingredients and engage in the fun madness that comes along with family dinner during Thanksgiving.
When I lived abroad, I constantly used WhatsApp to communicate with my mother. Connecting with her throughout my adventures and during holidays such as Thanksgiving made her present, even though it was virtually. Using technology made holidays more intimate even through distance. Cooking together, sharing recipes, and getting constant feedback on what to add to my dish to make it like the one she makes has been a great way to bond and share memories. It was a great way to strengthen our mother-and-daughter bond. Being away and having these intimate moments helped us maintain our emotional closeness and allowed me to feel her support even though she was an ocean away. Hence, reaching out to family is crucial to help you maintain a healthy mindset despite being alone. Connecting with your family allows you to maintain your support system, which will help you not feel lonely. Keeping up with your family allows you to bring them on your adventures and let them experience excursions they also dreamt of doing.
- Decorate for Christmas
One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is gathering after everyone has eaten, cleaning the dishes, and setting up the Christmas trees. Back at home, Thanksgiving is the ringer to the Christmas holiday. Hence, another way to celebrate Thanksgiving abroad is by bringing those traditions wherever you are. Whether alone or with friends, decorating for Christmas is a great way to bring joy to the unsettling feeling of being far away during a family gathering. When celebrating Friendsgiving abroad, I ask my friends to help me set up my Christmas tree. To make this experience unique, I asked them to bring at least one personal ornament from their cultures or create something that would remind me of them. In Belgium, a friend and I went Christmas tree shopping on Thanksgiving day, allowing us to light it up after Thanksgiving dinner. It was the first time I went to a Christmas tree farm and picked a tree instead of the synthetic trees I bought online. Being able to have a first-time experience gave me a wonderful memory to be fond of for years to come. Doing it with friends you meet abroad adds to your experience abroad. This activity will help deepen your bonds, foster long-lasting friendships, and give you memories that you all will share.
Since Christmas is a global holiday, hosting a Christmas decoration event will prompt many people to participate, giving you a sense of unity and shared joy. Although some of your acquaintances may not bond with you on Thanksgiving, they can bond with you over the Christmas celebration, allowing them to bring their cultures and traditions and creating an atmosphere of bridging cultural divides. Inviting friends who are also away from their families during the holiday, this activity will also help them not feel alone. You and your new friends can choose to host a Christmas decoration party at each of your apartments. You guys can go tree shopping together, then take turns decorating the trees at each other’s apartments. You can have a DIY ornament decoration activity, where everyone will add a personal touch to their ornaments to turn the tree into a mosaic of shared memories and traditions. With imagination and creativity, this activity can lighten up your Thanksgiving day abroad and alleviate loneliness during a solo Thanksgiving abroad.
- Volunteer
Lastly, volunteering is another way to spend a solo Thanksgiving while abroad. Volunteering helps you maintain the tradition of Thanksgiving and is a powerful integration tool when you live abroad. It allows you to give back and forge meaningful connections with the local community. It will enable you to see the local community’s societal challenges and foster empathy as you get a first-hand experience of how communities address the unique challenges in their neighborhoods. By contributing your time and skills, you become part of that community. Whether volunteering at a food bank, teaching an English class, or helping organize an event, volunteering abroad enables you to partake in something bigger than yourself. Additionally, volunteering allows you to meet people of different backgrounds you may not meet on your journey abroad. Interacting with such groups and local organizations enriches your perspective and expands your social network, which is crucial when living abroad.
While living in France, I volunteered as a French tutor at a refugee welcoming center. As a migrant to France, it was beautiful to connect with other migrants and be a part of their integration process, as I was also learning to integrate into French society. Being a tutor helped me put my French skills to good use. Spending Thanksgiving by volunteering abroad enables you to maintain a sense of normalcy, as volunteering is part of the Thanksgiving tradition. Whether you only volunteer that day or for months, you will contribute to a good cause. Volunteering will allow you to connect with others, alleviating the feeling of isolation from being alone during Thanksgiving. Volunteering during holiday seasons can transform your experience and the lives of those you are helping, creating a fulfilling and enriching exchange. Hence, it is a fantastic activity during your solo Thanksgiving abroad.
In conclusion, living abroad has many benefits but presents many challenges. One of the challenges travelers face is being alone, away from their family, during the holiday season. As Thanksgiving approaches, Americans living abroad, whether for studies or work, can feel lonely, especially if they cannot fly back home or live in a country where Thanksgiving is not a significant holiday. This guide offers you seven ideas on how to enjoy a solo Thanksgiving while you are abroad. From practicing self-care to going on a mini-trip to volunteering and hosting a dinner event, these ideas help you maintain the traditions of Thanksgiving with the unique twist of being abroad. These ideas allow you to combat feeling lonely and find creative ways to bring Thanksgiving wherever you are. By implementing these ideas, you will realize that having a solo Thanksgiving is not a hurdle but an opportunity to enjoy your time abroad and carry to your local environment the spirit of Thanksgiving. As always, thank you for reading. Like and share this post!
Until next time, have a great holiday abroad!
Xoxo,
Cy!