How to make it through the holidays alone.

If you’re reading this alone — physically or emotionally — please know this first: there is nothing wrong with you. Being alone during the holidays doesn’t mean you failed. It means life changed, and you’re still here, figuring out how to stand in it.

This is not a guide to “making it magical.”

This is a guide to making it through.

1. Redefine What “The Holidays” Mean This Year

You don’t owe December the same traditions you once did. If everything changed — family, relationships, loss, distance, estrangement — then the holidays get to change too. You can shrink them. Redefine them. Or quietly ignore them.

This year might just be about:

• Getting through the day
• Keeping yourself safe and fed
• Letting yourself rest
• That is still enough.

2. Stop Comparing Your Inside to Other People’s Outside

Holiday happiness is the most carefully staged illusion of the year. People post photos, not the aftermath. Smiles, not the silences. Traditions, not the grief tucked in the next room.

If scrolling makes you ache, put the phone down. Protect your nervous system. Your pain does not need to compete with anyone else’s highlight reel.

3. Create One Small Anchor for the Day

When everything feels hollow, structure helps.

Choose one grounding thing you will do — not to feel happy, just to feel present.

It could be:

• A hot shower
• Lighting a candle
• Cooking one comfort food
• Watching a movie you’ve already seen
• Taking a walk at night when the noise is gone

One anchor is enough to keep you from floating away.

4. Let Grief Show Up Without Explaining It

Grief doesn’t care what the calendar says.

If you are grieving a child, a relationship, a version of your life — the holidays may amplify everything you’ve been holding in.

You don’t have to justify being sad.

You don’t have to “stay strong.”

You don’t have to perform gratitude.

You’re allowed to cry in pajamas at 2 p.m.

You’re allowed to not answer questions.

You’re allowed to survive quietly.

5. Reach Out — But Gently

You don’t need a room full of people.

You might just need one honest moment.

A text that says:

• “Thinking of you.”
• “Today is hard.”
• “Are you around?”

Or even posting something real instead of pretending.

Connection doesn’t fix everything.

But isolation makes everything heavier.

6. If You’re Alone Because You Were Left — This Is Not Your Shame

Some people are alone at the holidays because of:

• Custody loss
• Family estrangement
• Abuse
• Incarceration of loved ones
• Systems that separated them

If that’s you, let me say this clearly:

Being alone does not mean you are unworthy of love or family.

Sometimes it means you survived something impossible.

7. Give Yourself Permission to End the Day Early

You don’t have to stay up.

You don’t have to wait until midnight.

You don’t have to “make the most of it.”

Sometimes the bravest thing is:

• Going to bed early
• Turning the lights off
• Letting tomorrow exist later

Rest is not giving up.

Rest is survival.

If No One Told You Today

You mattered before the holidays existed.

You still matter now.

And you’ll matter when this season passes.

This season will pass.

Maybe not neatly. Maybe not painlessly.

But you will not always feel the way you feel right now.

If you’re alone tonight — you are not invisible here.

And if surviving today is all you can do — that is a victory.