What do you want the holiday to be? Set it up. If you want to travel over Christmas every year? Start planning where you'll go. Do you love the family get-togethers the most? Start hosting, and get a plan in place for people to come to you. I've found that, for most things, it just involves one person saying "hey, let's do this" and getting the plan started. Once you have a date and a location, everybody else just has to get there.

You can make it be whatever you want it to be. Maybe the two of you plan a special dinner and have a quiet day at home enjoying each other. Maybe you decide to travel. Maybe you open your house to others and create a found family to host. Maybe you volunteer around town for various holiday activities (angel tree gifts for less fortunate, food bank, city tree lighting, etc) or maybe you decide to not celebrate at all and put the money on a home improvement project you both want.

The holiday will never remain the same. Families change and move and grow up. Each year is new opportunity to re-envision a new way to celebrate. Look forward to that!

Recently widowed from the woman who taught me how to enjoy Christmas after my dysfunctional childhood family. Make it all about each other, brother.

It's a gradual change, but all things have to change. Nobody can stay that excited kid ripping open presents, with their parents and grandparents all looking on smiling.

As you've said - people start to move away, families start having rifts/separations/grudges, family members die.

This year is the first year in over 60 years that I will be spending Christmas day with just ONE other person. The first time in over 30 years that I will not be hosting.

Firstly, the whole family gathered at my parents house.

Then we had children, and the day changed shape - it went back to being "all about the children" and Santa. Much more decoration and fuss.

Then we bought a bigger house, and my parents were getting older, so we started all gathering at my house, and I'd do the catering and mum would bring her famous potato salad (and other things).

then one of my brothers stopped talking to the other - one person less.

As our children got older, it all calmed down a bit, once again, and became all about the food & family. A few years my husbands family came to visit/stay, and it was huge again.

Then it got smaller again, as children moved out of home, gained partners, had commitments to partners' families as well. Then my dad died.

Then we retired, and sold the family house and moved away. The gathering moved back to mum's house, but I would do the travelling, stay at mum's house, and do all the shopping and catering there.

Then a couple of my kids moved to other cities.

And now, my mother's house has been sold, and she has moved to a nursing home. I have nowhere to stay in town, and it's too far for a day trip. None of my kids can travel this far.

We have decided to have a quiet Christmas (just me and my husband), and on Boxing Day, we will host a "leftovers" lunch with a few friends who are also not involved with family this year.

Ham sandwiches. It will be a great day.

You have a whole spouse to spend holidays with? And extended family on both sides that you like an could visit? Sounds pretty fortunate to me.

We are going hiking on Christmas. Maybe we will call siblings. Christmas is weird and small and mostly just a memory. Decorating takes 3 minutes nowadays.

well my parents died when I was 22 and I am the only child. also was not married, no children 

I am 37 now and still no parents, no marriage, no children and no family.

I buy myself a Christmas present every yr.

first few yrs I spent it alone 

I am now a chef and I am at work cooking for people on Christmas day which I love and we usually have a Christmas staff party with ham and gift exchange with the staff that are working on Christmas day. 

We sort of ignore the holiday. I used to put up a tree with my son but he's graduated college and moved out. He'll be over for dinner for a few hours. My partner and I don't exchange gifts because we already have all of the stuff we need or want.
The only "Christmas decorations" there are in the house now is the collection of cards we've received. .

My parents are dead, 'sister is 300 miles away and most of my aunts and uncles are dead. My cousins are typically feuding about something I don't know about and have moved away somewhere.

We sort of ignore Christmas except for making a nice dinner and having my son over.

I used to dread taking down the tree. Now we don't have to do it.

I’m 42. Parents have passed, third Xmas alone coming up. It is what it is. It doesn’t really bother me until xmas eve and it passes mid morning Xmas day

This happened in my family, unfortunately. The year my mother died, I asked my brother to come over for Thanksgiving and he said he didn't see the point. It's gotten a little better 20 years later. I'm seeing him for Christmas this year, and I have been for the past few years. Still don't see him on Thanksgiving.

I’ll let you know. This is the first holiday season without family on my side, husband and I don’t have kids either.

Thanksgiving went OK. I’m honestly not sure about Christmas, though.

We travel. One year we spend skiing, the next snorkeling in the tropics. I never enjoyed the enforced family time. In the odd year we are around, we host people we actually enjoy and no one we are obligated to host because of family ties.

It’s quiet, not very different from any other day.

Which is different from the Christmas I grew up with & my husband’s traditions too.

Long story short - over the years, you lose people & annual traditions change.

After my dad passed, (and he made a big deal of Christmas), my mom never hosted Christmas. My brother would host on occasion but certainly not every year. We would offer to host but I think they came once, maybe twice (2000 miles away) in 24 years.

Husband’s family- after losing parents/grandparents & divorces, the big extended family gatherings just slowly stopped. Christmas traditions dried up…so our travel to them (2700 miles) every other year did too.

Most years it’s a quiet day at home. Basically a normal day but nicer: sleeping in & being lazy, not having to get out of jammies! Plus gourmet snacks & meals.

We do stockings but don’t exchange other gifts for the most part. So after coffee/opening stockings, we’re pretty much “done” with Christmas other than cooking a nice dinner.

We watch tv or movies. We take the dogs for a walk. We make & eat a nice meal. We make fancy coffees. We FaceTime family. We read (often a book we got as a gift).

it’s quiet. It’s great if you’re an introvert!

It’s a contrast to how Christmas used to be. Some years that part makes me sad. I try not to dwell negatively on the smallness of Christmas being “just us”, compared to our pre-2010 elaborate and big family traditions & travel we used to do.

I also think a tiny Christmas is nice, & I appreciate lots about it! Hallmark & all the holiday ads make it sound like you need to spend Christmas with lots of people. But I’m wondering if there aren’t lots of people like us, having a “just me!” or “just us!” Christmas. Like maybe closer to the norm than pop culture would have us believe.

A few years ago my husband and I went to Mexico for two weeks! It was great! We ate Christmas dinner under a big tree with a monkey in it!

Now, Christmas is a nice meal, favorite holiday movies and music. Our grown kids come and go, unless they’re going to their significant other’s family’s house. Sometimes we take whoever comes over to the movies. That’s a really nice time, we don’t get many outings with our grown kids together. I still put up the tree because I love it.

Travel during the holidays. Make your own traditions

My answer is gonna be different than a traditional one. I’m not close with my family and have only spent a handful of times with my family on Christmas since 16. My wife on the other hand always has her mom come over though.

Since the lady who gave birth to me and I aren’t close and I wasn’t invited home often for her new families christmases, I was taken in by other people so I was never alone on the holidays. I now am a homeowner myself so I have an open door policy for people I know who can’t or won’t be able to be around family during Christmas. I pay it forward and have a big Christmas dinner every year now. I love it, and wouldn’t give it up for the world. We tend to have 15-20 people over every year and it just feels so nice to have people I love and who love me around to enjoy the holiday.

I never had kids, lost Dad 5 years ago, Mom had a life-changing stroke 4.5 years ago, lost Mom earlier this year.

My advice is that attempting to “prepare for it” is a waste of time and energy. Be present and enjoy the moments you are having now

I had a couple really bizarre and lonely holiday season during covid, while taking care of my Mom. She really didn’t even know who I was after the stroke. I just picked up take-out food, and the two of us ate. She didn’t even fully understand it was a holiday, and it was during covid. So I was basically alone missing my parents, while taking care of my parent. To be honest, it was depressing as hell.

This past Thanksgiving I was free to travel, so I made it a point to drive a few hours and visit my Aunt (she’s getting older) and her whole branch of the family. We were able to share positive memories of my parents and it felt really good to connect with everyone.

You never actually know which holidays will be good or bad, so just enjoy them the best you can. If you don’t have family, find friends. Having family around doesn’t guarantee great holidays, and not having them around doesn’t doom them

I live on the West Coast with one sister on the East Coast and one in the middle.

We all have kids and the coastal families travel to the middle every Christmas and 4th of July.

Occasionally we travel somewhere else for July 4th, mountains or beach.

If you're going to be the couple staying behind, you could be the anchor for your siblings to return "home" to visit. Just be aware that, should they have kids, occupying the children will change the dynamics entirely.

Speaking from just my own personal experience, lonely and depressing.

Lonely. Parents are dead. Siblings moved away. Friends have kids and family traditions and are too busy to even text I December.

I can usually find a friends Christmas eve dinner to get an invite too. I travel to visit a sibling when I can get enough time off work.

When I was a kid everyone went to my grandparents huge farm for a week and we had 60 people there. My parents didn't continue the full family reunion tradition at Christmas and died young. So it's quite a disparity. I tried inviting people to my own event but everyone was busy with their own already.

If she is worried about the family not getting together when the parents are gone, then you simply host it yourself. It's not like these things just happen out of nowhere.

My wife and I generally just visit family, but there's a long time until our parents will be gone, but when that time comes I imagine we'll end up hosting a lot of the time.

We take that day to lock the gate, and stay naked all day.

I'm 55. Parents are dead, I'm divorced with no kids. Christmas should be just another day, but nope! I'm an avowed Christmas nut so my home is thoroughly decorated; for me by me. Boyfriend has a 10yo so I helped decorate his home, too. Still friends with the ex and we live close I so will start Christmas eve with coffee and a small gift exchange with him, then traveling 1.5 hrs to spend the evening at my best friend's, as I've been doing since I was old enough to get myself to her house (35 years so far). On the way there, pop in at my sister's house to drop off pressies for my niece. After that, a 2hr drive to the boyfriend's house to wake up there Christmas morning and do the tree/santa with his son. Take the kiddo to his mom's, with gifts for his siblings and mom. Finally, celebrate Christmas with the boyfriend's parents and family. Lots of driving, lots of baking, lots of wrapping, lots of bills, but for someone for whom Christmas should be "over" I've never been busier in my life. Or broke-er Or happier 🤶🎄

I would assume it gets lonely. You could start going on vacation during the holidays.  Unfortunately this is kind of an expensive season to vacation. 

I think for me the structure changed dramatically when I became single, and again when I became retired. It can be a difficult transition but I would suggest it's ultimately about freedom. There's less external drivers and more internal drivers. I struggled with that (still do) but the freedoms are astonishing. I could go down to the city's ice skating rink. I can make a pot roast. I can travel to join other parts of my family. I can mope about being alone. These days I like going on tiny adventures to have a lunch at a new place, find a new thrift store to look for a sweater, treat myself to a seasonal coffee.

Years ago in my teaching days I liked to ask the students about their Thanksgiving traditions, Halloween traditions, Christmas and New Year's traditions, and I found a lot of ways they celebrate those things and very different ways they cherish them. The common thread of those who seemed happiest was that they had some specific ritual they looked forward to. Maybe a great-aunt made a bourbon pecan pie and everyone fought over it. Maybe they had a bonfire at somebody's cabin. It didn't seem to matter what the ritual was, just having one mattered. And it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing, it can be a small thing you do this year, and maybe in a few years it becomes your thing. It's really nice to have the freedom, my struggle is to have the energy and courage to act on those freedoms. Hope you have a good one and enjoy the transitions and changes and new possibilities.

We go on lovely little weekend excursions with just the two of us, like New Orleans, Charleston, etc

Peaceful?

Stay in the here and now. You may not have another xmas

Holidays get a lot quieter, but they also get a lot more yours, you can build small rituals like movies, food, trips, volunteering that actually fit who you two are now, not who your families were.

So in my case, I've always had a very small family. There is one 4 hour get-together, and that's it. No rushing around.

And we don't even always do that.

When it's just me and my partner, it's very chill. We cook nice food for just us, have some mulled cider or a nice wine, and put on some holiday music/movie. We'll go for a walk. That kind of thing.

Honestly it's very peaceful.

Not saying that I wish harm on anybody but I seriously can't wait for the day that I no longer have to travel to a different fucking state for Christmas every year

It's a day. Only difference is the stores are closed and the mail doesn't come. I'm single-no kids and I've had to work a lot of holidays over the years so that's become my perspective. I ignore it and it goes away.

We became first-time grandparents in November, so everything is up in the air. My son and daughter-in-law aren’t taking her out in public until she receives her first round of vaccines, but may come to our house. (The other grandparents are about three hours away.) My younger son and his gf will be splitting time between us and her parents.

I simply announced when we were going to church, having dinner, opening presents, etc. and told all of them to jump in whenever it suited them .

My family really won’t have an excuse to get together when mine are gone.

Christmas is the excuse. If you want to get together, holidays are a convenient reason. You don't have to base it around a holiday, you can just decide that you'll all spend the 27th of March together, but it's usually easier to co-ordinate at a time when schools are off and some jobs shut down. Some of us don't want to see our families so we don't take up the excuse, but if you do, then just... do it. Be the glue that keeps people together. Offer to host, or to support another family member with hosting.

Personally I don't do family Christmas. I was orphaned at 21, had to go no contact with the rest of the family at that time, and I'm an only child. For several years Christmas was just an extremely lonely time where my focus was on passing the time as quickly as possible and trying not to give in to despair. Then I met my husband, who does have family but isn't close to them, and we built our own traditions. We both take time off, we cook things we like, we watch films and play video games and relax. It's an unsociable time but it's when we recover from the year that's been and recharge for the year to come, and we enjoy it. You can treat Christmas as a big deal or a small one, depending on your preferences.

husband and I live an ocean away from both of our families. So we celebrate only the two of us and have done so for many years. We absolutely love it. It is such a peaceful and beautiful time for us. We listen to christmas music while we eat our favourite food. We play our special holiday board game and just enjoy the spirit of the holiday together. It feels like we have created our little christmas cocoon that we look forward to every year.

We now travel to the home of whomever offers to host. Usually it's the home of the family with the most kids.

I’ll be honest, it is so hard when that happens. Our family gatherings have gone from 25-30 people to 15 people in 8 years. We know people who travel then because that’s when their work slows down. I could see us doing that. Curious what suggestions others have.

At least you have your wife. I personally am not married and my siblings seem to have forgotten that I exist. It's nice that you are concerned with keeping Christmas a family event and including everyone.

Just another day.

6 kids and very close to parents. But once adults we never did all that mad rush around getting together for Christmas.

Depending on where someone was that year, this one would meet up with that one etc. I last actually joined family for Christmas about 2012 I think.

My older sister is going to bothers this year. The rest of us doing our own thing. That's normal for us.

We love our little Christmas together. No stress.

Good time to travel to most places. Tourism is really slow. Start your own traditions.

Could you start a tradition of hosting a friendmas celebration? It sucks that family is moving away and siblings may not come over. But if you have an active social life, having friends come over might be a good idea. Especially if they are experiencing something similar with their own families.

I would also think long and hard about what you would like to experience during the holidays. Maybe you can find some of your own traditions and experiences to start. You can travel, go to different Christmas markets, head to destinations and spend quality time together. Or you could even volunteer. There's lots of things to do around the holidays if you won't be spending it around family.

I spend the holidays with friends.

Usually visit BIL and his family, but that's not always on 12/25. Don't like all the pressure to do stuff on that one day, would love to go hiking or whatever and avoid the crowds.

I’ve been estranged from my brother and mother around ten years and in that time the small amount of my mom’s very large family I knew have passed away. My son and I have a rocky relationship due to my mother’s constant interference while he was growing up. My dad and my daughter and granddaughter moved south so they’re a thousand miles away. My husband kids are the same they are a little closer but it’s still in another state. We celebrate Yule and solstice with a meal we cook and on actual Christmas Day we go for Chinese food. We’ve been doing this a few years. We don’t decorate a tree we have four cats and they are crazy. We order online and send the kids and grandkids gifts.

The loneliest time of the year.

I’m basically orphaned. My whole family is gone. My husband has a decent sized family which is good. If not for them, I would feel pretty depressed at the holidays. They’re all getting old though!

We used to go to my mums on Xmas eve till Boxing Day and it was a bloody nightmare! Hated it! Now since my Nana passed away just as Covid had started and the following year Covid restrictions it felt sooooo nice just me and my son at home on Xmas day.

So now for the past couple of years we go on Xmas eve early afternoon until about 7/8pm we have our Xmas dinner a couple of drinks then it’s home time. On Xmas day my son goes to his granny’s in the morning with his dad after hes opened all his presents n I make a mini Xmas dinner for him coming home and we can just relax and chill.

The holidays have changed a lot over the years; divorce, death, moving, etc. We just ask what others are doing and either try to incorporate someone or something new to enjoy. Some years are just quiet at home just us. Or spread the holiday out. Celebrate the holiday with this/these family members when you are able to get together (January, February). Go out to eat instead of having to do all the work! You will figure it out. Life will continue to keep changing, that's one thing you can count on so make the best of it. It's not the end of the world; just different.

We don't do anything. No decorations, no gifts. Most of our families are gone or not anywhere close by. It's just another day.

Another day except lots of businesses are closed.