This year has been more than a challenge for most people; some of us have had to completely change our lives around from how we work to how we spend time with our loved ones; with the holidays coming up I'm sure a lot of people are either on the end where they're feeling a bit of FOMO or they're gonna say screw the pandemic, I'm going to spend the holidays with my family anyway.

Whichever end of this spectrum you fall is not my business, do you booboo.

But as someone who's spent a lot of holidays alone, I'm neither. I grew up with my mom taking every single over time, double pay, holiday pay, whatever she could get. So for most of my childhood she wasn't there for Thanksgiving. My dad felt obligated to spend it with his side of the family and by the time I had hit 16 and my brother was 15 we stopped wanting to go with him and just wanted to stay home. So we would pile up our plates and watch A Christmas Story all day long.

When my ex husband and I moved across the country to Florida in 2013, we spent Thanksgiving either at work (cause Disney does not care what day it is, you come in, period) or just by ourselves. We learned how to mess up a turkey and sides together. And ended up just getting KFC instead lol. And there were years where my ex would go to work and I'd spend the whole day alone. 

Which was fine, I honestly prefer to spend the holidays alone. I don't like big crowds or rooms with lots of people having a million different conversations at once. I do miss my family, don't get me wrong, but spending the holidays alone has never been a big deal to me.

I know it's going to be a big deal for others, so hopefully my 7 pieces of advice can help ease the sadness a little bit.