I'm single, and at least a two hour flight from anyone else in the family, and I can't possibly get to visit on every holiday. I'd like to, but it can't happen. So I take my holidays at home and find my own way of enjoying them. In Boston, New Year's Eve is First Night. None of my friends want to run up and down Boylston Street freezing on the 31st of December, so I usually enjoy the crowds and the fireworks all by myself. Same thing on the Fourth of July.

Christmas and Thanksgiving I've done everything from sit around feeling sorry for myself(well, one year anyway), to going out and doing volunteer work, to sleeping in til noon and watching old videos in my pajamas. I'm not all that old, but I've learned that the holidays are joyful when I want to find joy. And that if I look for other people to give me the joy, I'll be disappointed, but when I give out joy, I'm usually given it back. My cardinal rule is that there isn't a single thing for the holidays that I HAVE to do, only things I'd LIKE to do -- and if they don't happen this year, well, next year is still there. Big family dinners can only happen when there's a big family to split up the work anyway. One "special" food, (for me it's usually oyster stew on New Year's because it's quick and easy) is sauce to my usual fare of frozen dinners, and it satisfies me.

And I do sneak in visits to nieces and nephews some years, so it isn't that I'm always alone. But even when I'm off visiting relatives I have a rental car so I can take a few hours of "breathing space" during the visit. And my family is pretty easygoing about holiday "traditions". Four sets of kids, and only one set opens on Christmas Eve now. My oldest sister pretty much lets the kids open the presents when they arrive if they want to(although the kids are willing to wait for Christmas). Some years there are fattigman, some years, a rose, some years, Norwegian Meatballs. We try to do the stuff the kids really want to do, but the kids mostly do the hard work as they get old enough. (Field cedar's do not make elegant Christmas Trees, but you do get that special Charlie Brown touch...) We always try to get to the carol service at church, but we've skipped that when the temperature was below zero. I don't think we've skipped hugs, or laughter, or "I love you's" though. But then, we don't skip them anytime of year.

I don't know, Carol... I keep thinking of a trip I took twenty years ago with the Air National Guard. Half the guys in my unit thought that Turkey was a miserable place to have to go to, and that it would be awful, and half the guys thought it would be fascinating and interesting and fun. And every single one of us found what we were looking for...