TORONTO – Amongst the frantic last-minute trips to the mall and the consumption of Advent chocolate and eggnog, it’s easy to forget one of the joys of the holidays: spending time with family.
Yet, for many across the country, namely students who study out of province or even out of country, being home for the holidays isn’t an option.
Spiked airline costs and limited downtime are a few of the reasons some generation Yers are forgoing Christmas reunions to become holiday orphans. And for others, like Andrea Nunes of Vancouver, spending this time of year with the family is about as enticing as standing in a long lineup at the post office.
“I have sentimental feelings about Christmas itself but they’re not really about my family,” said the Emily Carr University office assistant. “My family against the backdrop of Christmas can’t help but bring up all these seething, burning resentments from Christmases pasts.”
After her grandmother passed away when Nunes was a teenager, things in her family “broke down” to the point that her mother cancelled Christmas one year. It’s since become a mutual agreement among all family members not to celebrate together, which she thinks is “pretty great.”
Nunes still acknowledges the holiday, and usually uses the time to bake. She also makes a point of calling her family members on Christmas Day.
“It doesn’t make me feel sad, it makes me feel relieved,” she said.
For Meelashini Auaduer, a third-year commerce student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, travelling to her home country of Malaysia during the holidays isn’t a logical decision.
“Taking the two weeks to go back half way across the world wouldn’t really make sense,” said the 21-year-old.
The fact that her family doesn’t celebrate Christmas “softens the blow.” Instead, she feels those pangs of sadness during the end of October, when her family celebrates Deepavali, the festival of lights.
Still, Auaduer insists she never feels alone during the holidays, and spends them travelling to Montreal or Toronto, or having a potluck with other Malaysian friends.
“If you don’t think about (being away from your family) you don’t get sad,” she said. “So I don’t think about it.”
Some universities actively make an effort to accommodate their students who don’t have anywhere to go over the holidays. For the past 12 years, Concordia University in Montreal has hosted a dinner soiree. The school invites all of its 4,700 foreign students, and the first 300 to respond are treated to a three-course meal.
“We target international students as a way to make them feel at home and spread the season’s good cheer and try to help them feel the good cheer,” said Scott McCulloch with the Advancement and Alumni Relations department, which organizes the dinner along with the school’s Alumni Association.
Even without the school as a liaison, many foreign students still manage to come together over the holidays. Moses Richu, a third-year University of British Columbia student from Kenya, said celebrating Christmas away encourages you to develop new traditions and customs with people from different parts of the world.
“You get 10, 20 guys together and you start explaining how it works and you learn so much from each other,” he said. “It’s like a huge room full of culture.”
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