I’ve had my share of far-from-ideal Christmases. Stranded in an airport during a storm, stuck mid-French railway strike, sleeping in the car on a misjudged cross-country road trip, but never — not once in the last 40 years — have I spent Christmas truly alone.
This was the first time, and let me tell you how it went.
First of all, here in the US, everything seems different. Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday — something I had no idea about, and Christmas itself feels surprisingly low-key.
On the 24th, people are still working; by the 26th, they’re back at it. Christmas here is basically just one day, while back home, it lasts at least three days, but people keep saving vacation days to extend it as much as possible. Life halts, and nothing is open for three days. It’s the most important celebration of the year. People go all out with gifts and cooking — housewives are exhausted and keep complaining about it. So, if you don’t eat enough, or according to their standards, it’s considered a personal insult. Little Jesus, bring the presents and put them under the tree on the 24th, the Holy Night.
Here in the US, children receive gifts from Santa on the morning of the 25th. By the 24th, stores have hardly any Christmas items left — but Valentine’s Day merchandise is already everywhere. It’s jarring.
On the 24th, we meet up with two Hungarian girls. Liwi introduced us before she left New York, and fortunately, the connection with her friends is working out well.
Hungarians are known for avoiding eye contact abroad, lowering their voices, not selling themselves, and not trying to be funny or charming. But not in New York. Here, life is so tough that you’re happy to have anything familiar — even small comforts. It actually matters if someone knows what a normal tampon (the kind we get back home) feels like, or what real tissue and toilet paper are (at least two-ply and lotion-soaked are our minimum standards).
So we need to talk about brands and import them from home: Korpovit biscuits, God, I miss them, and effective decongestants that actually work for colds — because here, what they sell feels like nothing more than a useless, poor imitation.
(By the way — if you’re trying to breathe through your nose in the U.S., good luck. Back home, we get pseudoephedrine, which actually works. Here, they give you phenylephrine — aka placebo in a shiny box. So ineffective that they’re literally considering removing it from the market. If you want the real stuff, you have to beg for it, and they check your documents like you’re smuggling meth. I mean… non-functioning decongestant plus sandpaper tissues? That’s a bold combo. This has nothing to do with this article — just that I’m currently battling sinusitis.)
Ok, back to the topic, Christmas alone. So on the 24th, I finally met with these Hungarian girls. Brand-new friendships around the table — bonds that have no shared past yet; all we have is the present tense.
Eight thousand miles from home, we laugh at how everything is different here. A full-on workday — while back home, this would be the most sacred evening of a three-day holiday. We don’t try to pretend; there isn’t even a traditional Hungarian Christmas menu. We sit together, talk, eat something new and delicious — something that tastes like care but doesn’t feel like Christmas.
Reindeer sweaters on, a beautifully decorated tree in the room — but our souls are not dressed up for the celebration. We laugh at the fact that we were still in pajamas this morning when our families called from home, already eating their festive dinner, and at how the time difference makes it challenging to share moments with your loved ones — and how touching it is that, no matter how hard it is, we never stop trying.
We quiet down. The city keeps glowing outside and doesn’t stop —
the city we all call home now, where we are all lonely, together in our solitude.
On the 25th, I was supposed to go with a friend to hang our handwritten wishes on random Christmas trees, but she got sick — and somehow I wasn’t even upset about spending the day alone. I had to reflect on the past year, unpack it, do some self‑care, and write.
I think this was the time of year when I didn’t listen to my recorded meditation at double speed. I’m trying to meditate more often because I know how healing it is — but who the hell has time with so much to do? I’m not sure if it even reaches its goal yet, especially with my double speed meditation method, but at least I’m doing it.
And yes — I wrote again.
Not really a poem with rhyme, not even a poem, more like a wish, I put it on a random Christmas tree nearby anyway.
My kind of Santa
Dear Santa,
Blanket the Earth in peace.
Silence the guns.
Let love rise like smoke,
Health pour like rain,
Joy return to the hollowed hearts.
To every living soul—
except one.
With that one…
Do your thing,
please.
Thank you.
Even though I was physically alone, I was not disconnected.
I felt the love that surrounded me, from my dad on the phone,
from my Hungarian friends back home, from the messages and photos they sent — I could feel that I’m just as missed by them as they are by me.
I also felt the violent, unbearable longing for my little dog. Grief sucks more on special days. It punched my stomach when I saw on Facebook, I saw that a year ago, I was at my friend’s place with Ellise… It breaks my heart how much she should be here, but she isn’t, and yet, somehow, she still is.
And yes, let’s talk about this year. Because somehow, even in the hardest, rawest, saddest, loneliest, most emotionally ridiculous year of my life, ChatGPT managed to make it seem funny and wildly successful. Like smudging mascara on a disaster and calling it art — and somehow, it worked, because it made me smile and I felt proud for a second to think about what I managed to create in the middle of this shitshow we called 2025. I have to say it out loud, but boy, it’s the truth: a global pandemic was easier than 2025. And if I succeed in creating all this while suffering both emotionally and physically, IMAGINE what I will build when life is normal again.
Being alone at Christmas seemed much scarier in my mind than it actually was. If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t need to fear our thoughts. And if someone doesn’t have to fear their own thoughts, then loneliness isn’t as frightening — you don’t have to turn on the TV to avoid hearing them.
“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
When Your Inner Voice Turns Cruel
(And what to do when it says things no one would dare say to your face.)
I know you’ve heard it. That voice that creeps in when you’re alone and vulnerable. Not the wise, loving inner guide, no. The other one.
The one that says:
— “You deserve to be alone.”
— “You’re a failure.”
— “No one wants you.”
— “You’re unlovable.”
— “You’ll never be enough.”
It shows up most when you’re trying to rest, to create, to connect or just f@cking survive. And the worst part: it sounds like you.
I’m sharing a fundamental tool from my Write the Futures Somatic Writing method inside The Lab. At my club, The Lab, hosted on Substack, I mentor brilliant and curious people as a clinical health psychologist and futurist.
If you’ve ever felt bullied by your own brain, you need this.
👇 Join The Lab— go here.
And yes, it involves Mickey Mouse, toilet goblins, and maybe a constipated elf.
