Dispatches from the North: An Expat Christmas

The holidays are really a dilemma for expats, especially those of us who are here as spouses, you simply can’t be two places at once and holiday travel is expensive.

There are many challenges when it comes to managing the holidays. First of all, if you are spending the holidays in the UK, how do you get gifts to family and make an effort to be a part of their celebration overseas? If you are going back to your home country for the holidays, when can you start your Christmas shopping? How much can you fit in your suitcase? It takes a lot of juggling and no matter where you are, there is always going to be a bittersweet feeling that you can’t be somewhere else.

Christmas Day in Hartlepool 2008

Last year my husband and I stayed here and celebrated the holidays with his family for this first time. It was great, I thought it was going to be really difficult but on Christmas Day I wasn’t missing my family as much as I had expected to. This year I am returning to my parents home in Metro Detroit for the first time in 17 months. Here are some of the ways I have dealt with the challenges.

Gifts

So what to do about gifts. There are tons of options, everyone does it differently but this is how I played it. Shipping internationally usually costs more than the value of the gift, so my first step was to order things online from American stores and have them shipped to my parents’ home. Most UK banks will do the currency exchange for you so if you have a credit or debit card you can order from many US sites and pay with your credit or debit card. I did a lot of this for this year’s gifts and just let my mom know to expect a box and not to open it. When I get home I will have a stack of boxes waiting to be opened and for gifts to be wrapped.

Last year I ordered from sites like Amazon that offer a wide range of products with gift wrapping so the gifts arrived at my parents’s house gift wrapped and ready for Christmas morning. There are gift wrapping options on many US stores so its easy to ship gifts directly to family and friends without spoiling the surprise.

But what fun would it be if I only gave them stuff they could get in the US? I have also bought certain special British items to take and share with my family. I bought a tin of Cadbury’s chocolate biscuits, a tin of Scottish shortbread, some After Eight chocolate mints and a tin of Earl Grey from  the Harrod’s Tea Counter. I tried to find things that are cleared for customs, which means they mostly need to be packaged and the ingredients should be identifiable. Also, lightweight so I don’t go over the weight requirement. Another thing to remember is that buying electronics and media in the UK and gifting it to family and friends in the US can be tricky. DVDs, video games and other media have region codings that won’t work in most US DVD players and game consoles. They are lightweight and small so they are easy to trasnport, but sadly when you get it there it probably won’t work on American media players.

Communication

I use Skype to keep in touch with my family throughout the year, we have a standing “date” every Sunday to make sure we stay in touch regularly. Also with my husband being deployed I have been able to use Skype to keep in touch with him as well. Our Christmas Day plan is to get on Skype at about 8-9 am EST and my husband and I will open our presents together. He has also sent my gifts ahead to my parents house and I shipped his gifts to him so we can open them “together” on Christmas morning. Its taken quite a bit of planning, but its totally worth it to have the closest possible thing to being together on Christmas and if all goes to plan we will still be able to see the looks on each other’s faces when we open our gifts.

Travel

I faced the full brunt of European weather delays Monday and I have one lesson learned. Be patient. As I stood in a line at the lost baggage desk there was a woman in front of me who had just flown in from New York. She was shaking with anger that her bags had been lost, little did she know that the entire line behind her had just disembarked from an 8 hour flight, many who had been travelling for well over 24 hours from destinations in Africa and Asia. Most of us handled it graciously and when I tearfully greeted my parents the last thing on my mind was that I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my laptop and cell phone in my carry on. Taking all the frustrations of the day in stride was the difference between enjoying my reunion with my family and seeing Detroit for the first time in 18 months and this irrate woman who was so distracted by her anger she couldn’t experience the satisfaction of knowing she would get to spend the holidays with her family. Holiday travel is infamously rife with complications. The key is to expect it so you won’t be angry and let down when it happens to you. Plan ahead for the worst case scenario and don’t leave your Christmas to the mercy of the airlines and you will find you can manage any travel frustrations with nothing more than a few deep breaths.

When this post goes live on Wednesday, I will already be in America reunited with my whole family and seeing most of them for the first time in 17 months. I can’t wait to finally be able to share all of my adventures and tales of my experiences with them in person.

I wish everyone who reads my column here a very Happy Holiday and I really want to take a moment to thank Jonathan for allowing me to write this column, its been a great way for me to share my experiences with people and to look at every new experience I have here a little closer. I think my eyes have been opened to a lot of things I might not have bothered to remember if I wasn’t thinking of a potential post. I am really excited for what will happen with Anglotopia in 2010 and I am looking forward to sharing lots of new experiences with you.