How Spending Christmas Away from Home Became My New Holiday Tradition
After loss, burnout, and a difficult year, I spent Christmas alone in Spain. Nine years later, holiday travel is still one of my most meaningful traditions.
Midlife Nomads explores how people are redesigning work, travel, and life in our 40s, 50s & beyond.
The first time I spent Christmas abroad was in 2017. My father had passed away that spring, my husband and I had been defrauded in our business, and my sons were ready to begin new holiday traditions with a younger sibling at their dad’s house.
Somewhat battered and broken, I got my husband’s blessing to take off for the holidays (he’s a chef and his role back then meant working through the holidays, anyway).
I booked a room in a hostel in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, for a few nights and intended to figure the rest out when I got there. It wasn’t much of a plan… I just knew that staying home rotting in bed wasn’t going to do it.
For the next three weeks, I toured the island and enjoyed the company of other travelers, many of whom also felt like misfits in some way for not going “home” for the holidays.
I didn’t make any lifelong friends… in fact, I’ve never seen anyone I met on that trip again. And yet it was an incredible and freeing experience, letting go of all of those weighty expectations of the traditional Canadian Christmas.
Since then, I’ve spent several weeks to a month or more over the holidays in Portugal, Mexico, South Africa, Nicaragua and more. This is mostly solo travel… sometimes Trevor joins me for a week, and often a friend traveling in the same area will pop in.
I celebrate the occasion with mine and Trevor’s families before taking off, then enjoy the season as stress- and guilt-free as possible.
Maybe this will be the year you make a new kind of holiday for yourself, too.
That’s what I had in mind while putting together our members-only Midlife Nomads Shortlist for December. These are my handpicked recommended stays of a month or more for working travelers 40+, with quality accommodations, many with built-in community, and most with reliable wifi (I’ve indicated where it’s not).
One of those is Anceu Coliving in rural Spain, which comes highly recommended by a friend in the coliving sphere whose judgment I trust.
If it’s your first time away and the holidays have traditionally meant a lot to you, perhaps a coliving with a vibrant community like Anceu is in order. Or maybe you’re ready for a creative retreat all on your own. Full subscribers will find options like that, too, with vetted stays for December spanning four continents. Check it out:
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That's it for this week. Until next time, may your wifi stay strong and your flights arrive on time.
✌🏻 Miranda
P.S. This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Viator, the place to find trips and things to do wherever you end up next. I earn a small commission when you make your booking through this link.
There’s something courageous about creating a new tradition instead of trying to force an old one to fit a life that has changed. The detail that you never saw those travelers again, yet still carry the impact of those conversations years later, says a lot about how meaningful even brief connections can be.