By Monica Miller
Since moving to San Francisco from San Diego over nine years ago, I’ve spent my holidays running on the hamster wheel of retail jobs that black out vacation requests in the month of December. It’s made the option of traveling back home for Christmas more of a luxury than a given. But even if I could get the time off, my family situation makes going home for the holidays pretty complicated.
I’ve been back to San Diego twice since I got here, and have celebrated two different sets of traditions with two different groups of people — usually within 48 hours or less. This isn’t anything new. When I was a child, my parents spent each holiday competing for the love and adoration of my brother and me, showering us with gifts, promises of future trips, and sweets. Those scenes quickly turned into a series of screaming matches, slammed doors, tears, and arguments, after which I would sit in the midst of torn wrapping paper and bows, wondering what had just happened while everyone drifted toward their respective corners of the house. After the second go-round of revisiting these same stressful scenes in a compounded fashion, I boldly refused to ever return home in December.
Without the journey to a place I can comfortably call home, Christmastime now stands still for me. Which is a tricky thing when everyone else around you is making plans and traveling here and there.
Every year around mid-December, the great migration out of the city begins. My roommates start deserting my house, I send text messages and get no response, and I eat most of my meals alone. The worst part of this is coming up with a response to the question that everyone asks right after Thanksgiving: “Wait, you’re staying here for Christmas? Why?”
I don’t really have a good answer (how the hell do you explain that you can’t deal with your parents?). But I do have my own solo Christmas traditions. One involves setting up my tree. It’s a kaleidoscopic mess of a tinsel-plastic hybrid that screamed “Help me!” the second I laid eyes on it. I thought it would be hilarious to have my own Castro-colored Charlie Brown catastrophe. I brought it home and my roommate and I threw multicolored lights all over it and decorated it with beer cans and two ornaments: a giant Hello Kitty figurine and a sparkly pickle. This tree has endured several moves, roommates, relationships, and jobs. On December first of every year it comes out of the same rectangular box, a reminder of the fact that I can enjoy this holiday in a way that makes me happy, no matter how nontraditional my experience may be.
The worst part of this is coming up with a response to: “Wait, you’re staying here for Christmas? Why?” I don’t really have a good answer (how the hell do you explain that you can’t deal with your parents?).
My other not-quite-as-fun holiday tradition is The Inevitable Not Coming Home Conversation. It begins the same way every year, with me explaining to my parents that because of A, B, and C, it just doesn’t make sense to go back to San Diego. I dread this discussion, mostly because it comes across as a laundry list of excuses. This year, my parents made my excuse for me. On the phone with my father last month, I was in for a rude awakening when we arrived on the subject of the holidays. “Well, honey, maybe it would be better if you just stay up there,” he said. “Money is kinda tight, and we can see you when it’s not so expensive.” My parents have fallen on hard times in recent years, so it was valid reasoning. I felt a mix of relief and anger. Maybe my parents are finally beginning to accept my need to be alone over Christmas.
Even though I insist on flying solo, I still sometimes crave the warm, cozy holiday experience. The closest I’ve gotten to that blissful Christmas nirvana was with an old boyfriend during our gift exchange. He was smart — he knew ASOS was my drug of choice and somehow found the perfect sweater, the one I had been lusting after for months. It was lovely, it was soft, it was exactly what I wanted. It was also three sizes too big.
I spent the entire day having a nervous breakdown — most of it on the phone with him under the light of my artificial tree — about the fact that he thought I was a much bigger woman than I am. He had gone home to visit his parents, of course; the relationship had been too new for me to join. I consoled myself with an order of super veggie nachos from El Farolito and some Tecate. That San Francisco comfort food rescued me from my depression, and added another episode to my nontraditional yuletide saga.
Reflecting on that memory now, I realize my ex-boyfriend wasn’t the problem. I was the problem. I was trying to use him to fix the yearly malaise that hangs around the holidays.
I was among people with common interests who also spent their Christmases in San Francisco. But I realized they wouldn’t be in my kitchen the next year. They were acquaintances I was using to feel less bad about wanting to be by myself.
Another year over drinks at Blind Cat, I sat with casual friends who are native San Franciscans, and who would inevitably flock to childhood homes located just a few miles away. After too many whiskey specials, we all stumbled home to my kitchen, where we continued to drink, warmed by my space heater. I should have been happy that I wasn’t alone, that I was among people with common interests who also spent their Christmases in San Francisco. But as these people drifted in and out of my sight, I realized they wouldn’t be in my kitchen the next year. They were acquaintances I was using to feel less bad about wanting to be by myself.
After spending a number of Christmases alone here, though, things definitely have gotten easier. I enjoy wandering around deserted streets that have grown darker from lack of headlights and powered-down marquees. The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is also one of the only times during the year that I can truly reflect on my life, in a city where I suddenly don’t need headphones or earplugs to focus. I can enjoy the quieter sounds of a San Francisco asleep in the cool embrace of Karl the Fog. And if I choose not to be alone for parts of that week, my favorite bartenders greet me with open arms, along with other holiday strays who understand the occasional listlessness that comes with being in this city solo.
This year, things are going to be different, though. I am newly paired with an extraordinarily loving boyfriend, who was raised Jewish. We’ve made plans to see one another on Christmas. He is excited to try out a holiday that was never really a thing with his family. Although we’re still figuring out our plans, he insists on spending Christmas in a way that would make me happy. And I’ve bought a gift for him, erected my tree, and embraced a new and strange sort of Christmas spirit.
I’m still keeping some of my solo Christmas traditions, though. Along with putting up my tree, I plan to eat a burrito cuddled around my space heater as I make phone calls to old friends. I will ride the emptier buses and I will wander the streets solo in my favorite dress. Even while being committed to someone, it’s okay to spend Christmas alone.
