When all the Christmas movies are about people going home for Christmas, back to their hometowns (usually called something like “Snowville” or “North Santaland”), running into long lost loves and baking cookies with their dying grandmothers, it can feel sad to find yourself spending your Christmas far away, sometimes across an ocean, from the people and traditions you love.

This is the curse of choosing this life. But remember, there are some good reasons you chose this life. There is so much good here too.
 
This year my family will all gather together. They’ll sing carols to candlelight like we did growing up. Even though we’re all adults now, my mom will perform her traditional duty of yelling at everyone to “just get along for one day!” while she threatens to take away all the presents and give them to more deserving grateful people. She’ll also make her delicious big Christmas breakfast. Everyone will be too full to eat lunch. She’ll invite her old friends and their families over for dinner and everyone will be forced to pretend they’re friends with her friend’s kids. It’ll be warm, cozy, and chaotic. And I won’t be there.
 
I’ll be here in Luxembourg with my own family. We’ll stay up late on Christmas eve drinking mulled wine and be too tired to make breakfast in the morning and we’ll eat cold cereal Santa brought in their stockings as if he knew their parents would not want to make breakfast (probably an idea Mrs. Clause had).

I’ll probably still threaten to take away their toys, but I won’t have near us much energy in my voice when I say it. My kids will not believe me for one minute. We’ll invite some friends over to play with all the new toys but only if they come in their pajamas because we still haven’t changed out of ours. Eventually we’ll decide to make some raclette for dinner even though it’s not New Years yet. We’ll have some mulled wine. It’ll be warm, cozy, and chaotic.
 
My advice: don’t try to recreate your traditions here. Don’t run to Home from Home (even though I love it) to get your specialties to make your traditional treats that are just not going to turn out exactly right because you can’t find all the ingredients you need. Don’t pay extra to order from whatever Amazon website carries the goods you need. Don’t force your parents to ship you a box of treats and the traditional pajamas from the “elf” that still visits your house 30 years later.
 
Instead, create something new. Celebrate with a big dinner on the 24th, stay up far past anyone’s bedtime (like the Belgians). Drink mulled wine. Skip the sugar cookies and eat a boxemannchen (like the Luxembourgers). Drink more mulled wine. Make your kids live in fear of Pere Fouettard (like the French). Drink some more mulled wine. Chow down on some Lebkucken (like the germans). Drink even more mulled wine.
 
But that’s not it, I’m not necessarily saying to just adopt the local traditions, what I’m saying is to make your own traditions. Mix some old with some new. Or come up with something all on your own. One year recently it snowed on Christmas eve, we called some friends, and headed up north to do some sledding. We had a great time, and every year since my kids have asked if we’re going to do “Christmas Eve Sledding” again.

One year I happened to have some melon on hand when we made Christmas dinner, and every year since my son has reminded me to buy the “traditional Christmas Melon.” The last two years, I’ve met up with my group of friends at the Christmas market in Kinneswiss park for a drink (mulled wine, obviously) before we had a Christmas dinner somewhere in town. Every year on 8 December we take the kids to 5 guys for burgers and chase it with churros from the Christmas market to celebrate the day we left the US and moved to Luxembourg many, many years ago. A little bit of America, a little bit of Lux, a perfect mix.

Luxembourg has a lot of great activities this time of year, find something you love, find someone to do it with, and start making your own traditions. And get yourself some mulled wine, already!