Celebrating the Holidays in a Different Country
For most of my life, the holidays meant familiarity.
The same decorations. The same foods. The same rhythm, year after year.
Comforting, yes, but also predictable.
There was safety in knowing exactly how the season would unfold. We knew what the table would look like, what time we would eat, and what songs would play in the background. The holidays were something we stepped into almost automatically, without questioning them, and felt that it could never get better than that.
Christmas 2015 in Arizona
Once we began traveling full-time, the holidays started to look very different. Different countries, different languages, different climates. Some years we were surrounded by warmth and palm trees, other years by cold air and early darkness. And slowly, without planning it, the meaning of the holidays shifted too.
Over the past eight years, we’ve celebrated Christmas in India, Belize, the Philippines, Bulgaria, Croatia, Costa Rica, France, and now Canada. Each place brought its own rhythm, its own energy, and its own way of moving through the season. With every new country, the holidays felt less like a fixed event and more like a moment we were learning how to meet again and again.
Christmas 2016 in Arizona
When We Stopped Trying to Recreate “Home”
In the first year of our travels, we were meant to be in India for the holidays. And I remember feeling incredibly anxious about how to recreate the perfect Christmas, the kind we had always had at home.
Christmas 2015 in Arizona
My daughter loved our Christmas traditions and wished for the same ones, even though we were on the other side of the world. I felt a strong need to protect that familiarity for her. I wanted to hold on to everything exactly as it was. I wanted the holidays abroad to feel the same as at home, the same meals, the same routines, the exact expectations.
Looking back, I realize how much pressure I was carrying. Not just to make Christmas memorable, but to make it recognizable. I was afraid that if it didn’t look the same, it wouldn’t feel the same.
But of course, it couldn’t work that way.
What did work was letting go. Slowly, and reluctantly at first, I allowed the place we were in to shape the experience. I accepted that the holidays didn’t need to look the same to feel meaningful.
Christmas 2018 in Mumbai India, our first travel Christmas
Our first Christmas abroad was completely different from all the ones before, and yet, it was absolutely perfect.
Our first Christmas paper chain
We booked a small apartment in a hotel in Mumbai. I ordered a Christmas tree ahead of time, which was waiting for us when we arrived, much smaller than I had imagined, but perfect in its own way. While driving through Rajasthan during our India tour, I bought some colored paper. I asked everyone to write, for the twelve days leading up to Christmas, what they loved about the year that was ending, what they were looking forward to in the year ahead, and where they dreamed of going next.
Each evening, those reflections became a quiet pause in our days. We weren’t rushing. We weren’t performing the holidays. We were noticing them.
We turned those notes into a colorful paper chain and decorated the place we were staying. On Christmas Day, we read every single one together.
Once we arrived back at the hotel, we decorated our tiny tree with ornaments that weren’t ornaments at all; they were keychains we had collected in every country we had visited up to then. Each one carried a memory, a place, a moment in time. We placed our very few gifts around it.
It was not the Christmas I had tried so hard to recreate.
It was simpler. Different. And somehow, more magical.
That was the moment we stopped trying to bring “home” with us, and instead allowed ourselves to create something new. And in doing so, the holidays became lighter, more intentional, and deeply ours.
Christmas 2018 in Mumbai India, our first travel Christmas
When the Setting Changes, the Focus Shifts
That first Christmas abroad taught me something I didn’t expect: once you stop trying to recreate something perfectly, space opens up for something else.
Being in another country during the holidays naturally strips away expectations. There’s no pressure to host. No pressure to buy the right gifts. No pressure to follow a script. The familiar checklist quietly disappears.
Instead, the questions become much simpler:
Where are we, right now?
What are we experiencing together?
How does this place relate to this season, or does it at all?
Without even realizing it, the holidays stop being about doing and start being about sharing. About noticing. About being present.
Christmas 2018 in Mumbai India, reading our paper chain
Watching the World Celebrate (or Not)
As the years went by, each country showed us a different relationship with the holidays.
In some places, the season is vibrant and overflowing, lights everywhere, music in the streets, people gathering late into the night. In others, the holidays pass almost quietly, woven gently into daily life or barely marked at all.
I’ve loved observing how cultures mark time, what they celebrate, what they prioritize, and what they slow down for. For our kids, this has been one of the most valuable lessons: understanding that traditions are shaped by culture, not rules.
Sometimes we fully join the celebrations around us. Other times, we stay on the edges and observe. Both experiences feel equally rich, equally grounding.
Christmas 2019 in The Philippines
The Small Traditions That Travel With Us
Over time, we’ve learned that when everything around you changes, it’s the smallest rituals that matter most.
A meal we prepare all together. A walk together without a destination. A quiet moment at the end of the day when everyone slows down.
These rituals don’t depend on a place or a season. They travel easily and create a sense of continuity wherever we are.
The holidays taught me something I didn’t expect: home isn’t a place you return to. It’s a feeling you carry with you.
Christmas 2021 in Bulgaria, preparing Christmas dinner together
When Less Becomes More
Traveling during the holidays naturally simplifies things. There are fewer gifts, fewer obligations, fewer expectations to live up to.
Christmas 2022 in Costa Rica
What fills that space instead is time. Conversations that stretch longer. Curiosity about where you are. A kind of presence that feels rare in everyday life.
The holidays stop being about a long list of gifts and where they will fit in the house. They become about choosing one small, thoughtful gift that truly matters. About cooking something simple together. About laughing, remembering, and talking through the paper chain filled with dreams and plans.
It becomes about family. About the heart. Not about the material side of the season.
So, celebrating the holidays in another country isn’t about escaping tradition. It’s about allowing tradition to evolve.
For us, it has become a time of reflection, gratitude, and connection, shaped not by a calendar or a location, but by the people we’re with and the experiences we share.
Each year, the holidays meet us differently. And each year, they teach us something new.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure that can come with this time of the year, maybe a slight shift, literal or figurative, can offer a new perspective.
Whether that means traveling far away, celebrating closer to home, or simply slowing down more than usual, sometimes doing things a little differently is all it takes to remember what truly matters.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.
Christmas 2020 in Croatia