It’s probably been 36 hours since I lifted up the blinds. I’ve been in somewhat of a hole since Christmas Eve. Holidays make me feel small and isolated.

It’s noon on the 26th and I’ve crawled out of bed. I lifted the shades, cleaned the house, lit palo santo, made myself a warm cup of spiced cacao, and pulled the intention from my jar of affirmations: ‘limitations are mind made’.

I can finally scroll through all of your expected and jolly Christmas pictures on socials without gagging or utter disdain, but don’t hold me to that— it comes in waves.

Yesterday I looked so long for non-holiday-related movies that could whisk me away in some scripted serotonin-boosted fantasy world where the characters feel more like family than my own. Christmas Eve I had that escape, I had that belonging. But I binged the whole series to a bottle of red wine until 3am and then finally fell asleep trying to replace it.

I had elaborate dinner plans but ended up eating leftovers. “I’m hardly hungry,” I remember thinking, “and what’s the point?” I honestly don’t need a holiday to cook like it’s the final supper. All my meals remain instagrammable. Cooking is one of the only things I look forward to every day. So I ate the soup I was proud of the day before and scoffed at my own loneliness.

I’m on month four of solo travel. When I got to Greece three weeks ago I thought maybe I’d meet a local who’d invite me over for dinner festivities. My plan B was to take myself out to some bougie restaurant and pretend I didn’t care over a 5 course meal. Sadly the omicron variant restrictions and being banned from Tinder resulted in plan C, which was to do what I do best: make my own food. For the record, the meal I made on Christmas day was elite but there’s no pics so I guess it didn’t happen.

I’ve spent some holidays abroad before, 365 days ago I was in the most love I’ve ever been on the Mexican coast; three years before that I was partaking in a humble gift exchange at the small ashram I served at in west India. Being abroad somehow makes me feel less alone, probably because back “home” everyone is huddled in their green and red cinnamon-scented living rooms with their family I don’t have. I’ve spent more holidays without relatives than with. But this is the first time I’ve been actually alone, physically. It oddly didn’t feel much different than being in a room full of people who don’t see you. I like being in another country for big days because at least the scenery is new and exciting; maybe it’s a grasp for control.

I woke up from strange dreams around 7am. My best friends on the other side of the world and I had a chat scheduled, if we all happened to be awake. The screen was split into thirds— one heartbroken, dark and hardly visible, one warmly lit, her cat dying on her chest, mine sleepy-eyed in a sea of bright white sheets, all different shades of depression in empty beds and empty homes. We each have our own grievances to share, (some of) theirs fresher and mine more absolute. Our phones like a blue-lit bonfire we’re all gazing into; my tribe. We take turns listening. Afterwards, I let my eyelids close to the sound of a nameless movie muffled in the background, the chimera of company keeping me safe.

On Christmas Eve the day before, I went to the plaza with a sign offering hugs to people like me: the sad, depressed and lonely. It hadn’t quite sunk in yet (the holiday blues). In fact, the shared bravery and human touch of hundreds of struggling strangers was an intimacy that brought me to tears. I felt fulfilled in those moments where the electro-magnetic frequencies of their hearts pressed together with mine, and we’d stay there for one full synchronized breath. Some people ran to my arms, some people sobbed in my arms. I noticed couples or groups of families walking by with one person reading the sign slowly, their face softening in recognition like they wanted nothing more than to stop for a hug. Problem is if they did, the jig would be up, so they shifted their sad gazes back forward and continued to pretend that everything is okay.

I came back to my Grecian studio that afternoon lit up and decided to record a retelling of my experience while the butterflies were still flapping and fervent. I watched my show while it uploaded. It took forever, nearly an hour, and then finally failed. It continued to fail over and over and over again, my frustration growing each time. After 6 attempts (including walking down the street wrapped in a blanket in attempts for better service, sitting on some steps and using my 11:11 wish for an ease-filled upload), I finally realized I was swimming against stream. Here I was on the side of the road on Christmas Eve desperately seeking Vitamin V (validation) while families were cuddled on their couches and children dreamt of santa clause. That visual was the kicker. I laughed at myself, and not the compassionate way. That’s when I went home and drew the curtains down.

On Christmas morning (more like afternoon) I watched a movie about the end of the world and thought myself to be both ironic and realist. I thought about how many people went into debt this year trying to prove their love through capitalistic exploitation. I thought about how damaging it is for caregivers to collectively lie to their children during their formidable years, when trust is so important. I thought about how impoverished families systemically bogged down can’t afford the same gifts as their wealthy counterparts and how kids are comparing their worthiness when their gifts from santa aren’t the same as their comrades or cousins. All the while their parents feel equally inadequate by not fulfilling letters to santa or meeting all their spouse’s wishes. How many people go into depression around the holidays? HOLY days, and yet, are they really?

Before our kids are even aware enough to notice, they’re bombarded with corporate holidays and gluttonous gift giving, weaving these expectations into their foundational synapses. What if we taught children skills as gifts, like gardening, music lessons, painting, or pickling? What if we encouraged them to let go of clothes and toys they don’t use and taught them the joy of giving to those in need? What if we used our gift money to prepare fresh bread and jars of chili to hand out to the house-less on Christmas Eve? Offer them blankets and jackets we no longer use? Feed the hungry and love the lonely like Jesus did? It would take 7 billion dollars to end world hunger annually; last year 1 trillion dollars went to Christmas spending in America alone.

Some people wait until Christmas to buy themselves something they want. Or worse, wait for someone else to buy it for them. I know it’s basically frowned upon but you’re allowed to treat yourself for no reason. If you really need something (within your means), hell if you really want something, stop waiting for a reason and just gift yourself what you deserve. Simple things like self-rewards and rest are shamed and shunned in our society (you’re only allowed to receive if someone else is offering). That’s all part of the low-self-worth-scheme and it’s time to unsubscribe. Start meeting your own needs shamelessly year round so you can give to the needy when the time comes versus equating holiday gifts as a means of your own self worth.

Why do so many people celebrate a man’s birthday that half the world doesn’t even believe in or, in the very least, respect? Jesus was a solid dude who showed us that miracles and christ-consciousness is achievable to all humans. I value his legacy. I also value the legacy of Buddha, Dolores Cannon and Paramahansa Yogananda but I admittedly can’t even tell you their dates of birth. Christmas is corporate exploitation cloaked in Christianity. What if we intentionally rewrote these outdated traditions to make more sense? There are almost 8 billion people in the world, and equally many unique opportunities for impact and perspective. If you could curate your own ceremonies, who, what, when, and how would you celebrate and observe?

Why do we wait until the end of the year to see our families? What if we aimed to share a meal with our loved ones every month? On any chosen date (when our compassion and gratitude can’t be marketed and capitalized)? Because they live too far? Take turns hosting. Take turns driving. Take turns cooking. Take turns cleaning. Better yet, make it a potluck so there’s less time cooking and more time connecting. Some people say they can only handle seeing their family once a year. Maybe if you saw each other more often there would be the spaciousness to resolve unhealed wounds and grudges that always seem to resurface around the holidays. What if it became so common and nourishing that you looked forward to it every month? What if you felt stronger together? Do the same with your friend family. Hell, do it once a week. Merge the two. Bring your communities together so new ideas and ways of living can be witnessed and integrated, so much so the black sheep and outward thinkers don’t have to feel outnumbered and alone. If we did this more often from our hearts, they wouldn’t call it “Christmas cheer”, it would just be cheer. It would just be compassion. It would just be a new standard of living.

My screen-time report was up to 10.5 hours a day this week. I look at my phone for bids of connection and hits of dopamine that are hardly there. I picked up my phone in between these very lines to find a “Merry Christmas” text from my father in my muted messages. Same man who insulted me on the phone for two hours last time we spoke. It was 10pm his time; I’m an after thought. I’m lucky to even get a text. I haven’t shared a holiday with him in six years. Time slipping from beneath us. My mom, maybe ever. She left a few months after I was born and my dad got full custody. She’s dead now, so at least she has an excuse.

Actually there is this one memory I have, she brought us to some random friend’s house Christmas Eve who also had a kid my age, maybe 4 or 5 years old. I still remember the layout of the house and sitting in a papasan chair for the first time thinking how I wanted one when I was a grown-up. My brother and I woke up and raced to open gifts. It was the first and probably only time I got something I wanted (some barbie-something-or-other). But my mom came in the room awkwardly and explained it wasn’t for me, I opened the wrong gift and had to give it back.

Getting gifts has always been kind of traumatic for me, as odd as it sounds. My mom lived across the country and we saw her maybe once a year. I learned quickly not to get excited when there was a package (however late) in the mail from her. They became painful reminders of how little she knew me— dinky dollar store toys or tacky damaged clothes from the clearance section of Big Lots, five sizes too big. Meanwhile my brother got custom-made jerseys from his favorite sports teams with his name on the back and handheld computer games.

My dad did the same thing. He’d spend all his money on the latest gaming console and put both our names on it despite knowing I’d probably never play. It wasn’t just that they didn’t know me, it’s that they didn’t even try. Sometimes I fantasize what life would be like if my parents cared enough to support my interests as a child. I was an avid reader, writer and always kept disposable cameras in my backpack. I remember writing a wish list to santa one year, even though I never believed in him (I was 5 years old when I first put two and two together). But I did it anyway. I must’ve been like 10. I don’t know why I did it, maybe it was a cry to be seen. A month after Christmas my dad found it buried on his desk, he told me he never saw it with shame in his eyes. That year he probably got me one of those bodycare baskets at the Walmart checkout line while snagging the latest Playstation. That’s the thing with my dad, sometimes you could feel his heart. I was an introverted empath, so that’s all the reassurance I needed every now and then. He didn’t know how to express emotion or even how to connect with a daughter at all. With my brother it was easy. They would play video games and watch football all Christmas day, while I’d be alone in my room reading or watching movies, both, I realize now, a means of escape; comforted by the companionship of fictional characters and far away lands. When I try to rationalize, I realize my brother had a concrete identity-theme (sports) and I was a complex creature that took more effort to understand.

Another year I had a fit about being excluded from tree decorating because my brother would obsessive-compulsively place sports playing cards and those mini helmets from the quarter machine over corresponding colored lights. My tantrum, a lack of processing skills mirroring my caregivers, was also another obvious cry to be seen. So my dad bought me a mini tree for my own room and I got to decorate. At the time I thought that was a cool compromise, now I see what I really needed was simply to be included, not ostracized more. I feel for my father, just trying his best.

I’ve learned a lot since moving out on my own nearly fifteen years ago; I see patterns I couldn’t back then, and they’re not just holiday exclusive. They call me an instigator now, when I try to bring these things up. They say I’m dramatic. My dad calls my new awareness “liberal indoctrination.” He tells me my therapy must be a waste of time and money if it just makes me upset about my past. Have you ever had the courage to tell a parent your shared dynamic, or lack thereof, gives you suicidal thoughts only for them to continue to insult or ignore you (I’m not sure which is worst)? I know the deflection, like most, is all shame based and that everyone is learning, but it hurts the same nonetheless. My dad still favors my brother (he still lives there) and I haven’t been invited “home” for the holidays since 2015. And so, I travel. I travel and drink wine and give strangers hugs in the park so they know they’re not alone. I travel because I have no place to go “home” to, nor immediate family to spend it with. People think childhood wounds are isolated events when, actually, they’re patterns pressed into our nervous systems affecting the way we operate for the rest of our lives.

It’s December 26th, and I still haven’t left my house. Night has fallen, and the only thing I’ve done today is process by writing this down periodically. In the distance I hear fireworks outside and imagine they look beautiful.

Noelle Mandolfo