It’s always good to see family and friends, but there’s a particular excitement in heading home when the streets are full of people on the way to see their own loved ones. For travellers, these can be some of our most memorable and cherished journeys, even with transport hubs at their most hectic and crowded. But the extra hustle and bustle is worth it…
As the old song says, if you’re lucky enough to go there, there’s no place like home for the holidays.
As you may have read in some of my articles here on Resonate, I’m a native New Yorker, born and bred. Since childhood, I’ve loved walking through the holiday bustle that is December in New York. The streets are full of people bundled against the frosty weather in colourful woollens. Festive lights glow everywhere, winking on at dusk atop skyscrapers and festooning the giant spruce at Rockefeller Center in their thousands. As I approach the huge twinkling tree from Fifth Avenue, skaters glide under a golden Prometheus, the charred smell of roasted chestnuts from a vendor’s cart sparks a memory, and for a moment I’m a six-year-old in the city again.
And New York is also where most of my family still live.
For those who travel often, or have moved away from close relatives and childhood friends, the holidays can be a strange experience. On the one hand, it’s delightful to learn the new traditions of the place where you happen to find yourself during the festive season; while on the other, it’s hard to deny that there can still be the odd twinge of homesickness — even when you may have lived elsewhere for decades, as I have.
Transplants or people who tend to be on the road regardless of the season know this all too well. More often than not, I have been fortunate enough to have surrogate families and new friends who ‘adopted’ me during these times, leading to some immersive crash courses in how things are done in my new home(s).
But despite our enjoyment of celebrating wherever we are, there’s the occasional feeling that there’s a little something missing. Or perhaps a big something missing, if you’re on your own over the holidays without the camaraderie of company.
That makes this time of year ideal for reaching out to other people who may be missing those near and dear to them. By creating a seasonal support system, we can get to know friends and neighbours better and build a stronger sense of community in a new environment.
