When Christmas Arrives With Wi-Fi, Emotional Baggage, and That Sinking Feeling That "Home" Is Now Just a WhatsApp Group

Right, listen here my china — let me paint you a picture more accurate than those Woolworths Christmas ads where everyone's wearing linen that somehow never wrinkles, laughing at salads, and nobody's having a nervous breakdown next to the frozen peas wondering if they can afford both electricity AND feelings this month.

Christmas as an expat isn't just complicated, boet. It's like walking into a Spur and ordering the full salad bar when you know — YOU KNOW — you're only there for the ribs and the sauce you're definitely going to steal in those little packets. But you pretend you're fancy now. You pretend you've evolved. You pile rocket leaves on your plate like you're not dying inside, and then you sit there chewing something that tastes like expensive grass while your soul screams "WHERE'S THE PERI-PERI?" That's us every December. Pretending we're fine. Chewing emotional rocket. Dying for something that tastes like home.

Because expat Christmas comes in flavours, né?

Some of us did the small-kids-after-divorce rodeo and yoh, that's a circus that belongs on Carte Blanche as a warning to others. You're buying two of everything on a budget that makes Boxer look like Sandton City, trying to explain to a six-year-old why Father Christmas now runs a two-house delivery route like he's working for Pep Stores during Black Friday with an anxiety disorder. You're wrapping presents at midnight using Checkers packets as gift bags (don't lie, we've all done it) while crying into your Coke because the Klippies ran out last Christmas when hope still lived at this address. You're making magic on one income while your ex's new partner posts Instagram stories about their "blended family journey" with matching pyjamas, and you're over here trying not to set the pap on fire. Again. And also wondering why nobody warned you that divorce means you now have to explain to a seven-year-old why "Daddy's new friend" gets a stocking too and honestly, you're one badly timed WhatsApp from losing it completely in the Dis-Chem parking lot.

But then there's the other flavour of Christmas chaos that nobody prepares you for, the one that sneaks up like a Telkom bill you thought was paid off — your kids are GROWN now. Like proper adults with opinions about cryptocurrency and oat milk. They're scattered across the globe like you accidentally turned your nuclear family into a Pick n Pay franchise, except instead of selling groceries you're just... far from everyone you love and also out of stock on emotional stability. You've got one kid in Australia doing Christmas on the beach (which is RIGHT, that's how it SHOULD be), another in Canada wearing a toque — A TOQUE, like some kind of gorgeous traitor who's forgotten where they come from — and maybe one still in South Africa living their best life in your old house, probably using your good Tupperware for leftovers they'll never return.

And you? You're somewhere in the Netherlands or Germany or wherever your life detoured, sitting in your tiny apartment that costs more than a Game City, wearing a jersey indoors at Christmas (which is WRONG on a spiritual level), wondering how the actual hell this happened. You raised them to be independent. To chase opportunities. To be brave and clever and all those things Oprah and your ouma said were important. The cheeky buggers actually listened. Now Christmas is basically a maths exam designed by someone who hates you, featuring time zones you can't calculate without a headache, flight prices that cost more than your first car (and your second car, and possibly your dignity), and a family video call where at least one person is always buffering like they're phoning from inside a Soweto microwave circa 2003.

You're proud of them — like proper ugly-cry-at-the-Woolies-advert proud. The kind of proud that makes your chest hurt in a good way, like eating too much melktert but emotional. But here's the doos of a thing nobody mentions in the parenting brochures — there's also this other feeling that sits in your ribcage like a boerewors roll that won't digest. It's not regret. It's not bitterness. It's more like... grief for a Christmas that will never exist again. The one where everyone was squashed into one house that smelled like your ouma's cooking, fighting over the last piece of malva pudding like it was a contact sport, and someone's badly behaved cousin's kid was eating ALL the fudge while your uncle did his annual inappropriate toast at 11 a.m. like he was auditioning for a role he definitely shouldn't get. It was chaotic, sure. Someone always cried. Someone always drank too much. Your aunt made passive-aggressive comments about your life choices while passing the potato salad. But it was YOUR chaos, you know? It was loud and sweaty and too much brandy and that bone-deep feeling of belonging somewhere.

Now? Now you're in a country where Christmas is COLD (which is cosmically incorrect), it's dark by 4 p.m. (absolutely not), and the radio plays Wham! and Mariah Carey on repeat instead of Bles Bridges and that one Afrikaans Christmas song that makes every tannie cry into her sherry. You're trying to explain to your Dutch or German or Swedish neighbours what a braai is and they're looking at you like you're describing a religious ceremony involving fire and meat, which... fair enough, but also they're MISSING THE POINT. You're walking through Albert Heijn or Lidl in a JERSEY — an actual warm jersey, at Christmas, which already feels like a betrayal by God, the weather, and your own life choices. And they're selling something called "Christmas pudding" for €12 that looks like it died in 1987, came back briefly as a ghost, and then died again from shame.

There's no malva pudding. No Mrs Balls chutney. No Castle Lager casually chilling in the Christmas aisle making you feel seen and understood. No Romany Creams. No Simba chips in flavours that make sense. No Ouma rusks for dunking in your rooibos while you contemplate your existence. And suddenly — SUDDENLY — you're having a full-blown existential crisis in Aisle 7 between the speculaas (which is just a disappointing biscuit pretending to have personality) and the sadness, thinking: Who even AM I if I'm not having Christmas in 35-degree heat, wearing a sundress I'll regret later, while my uncle falls asleep under a tree at 2 p.m. with a plate of sosaties balanced on his chest?

You FaceTime your kids — the actual humans you built with your body and raised with your heart and threatened with a wooden spoon when they lied about homework — and they're living WHOLE LIVES you only see in little squares on a screen. Your daughter's in Melbourne making Christmas lunch with her boyfriend's family, learning their weird traditions about crackers and paper hats, laughing at inside jokes you're not part of. Your son's in Toronto wearing a Canada Goose jacket (R15,000! You checked!) his ouma would've had WORDS about, doing his first "proper adult Christmas" with people who think biltong is "interesting" instead of essential. They look happy. They look... fine. They also look different.

Like people you have to slowly relearn every few months, like a language you used to be fluent in but now you stumble over the grammar.

They FaceTime you between their real lives — squeezed in like you're a meeting they're trying to wrap up before the next obligation. They love you. They miss you. You can see it in their eyes, that flicker of "I wish you were here." But you can also see the relief when the call ends because they've got other people waiting, other versions of family where you are not the sun in the centre anymore, just... a moon they visit sometimes when the timezone works out. And that's GOOD. That's healthy. That's exactly what you taught them, to build lives that don't need you to hold them together. But it still feels like being slowly photoshopped out of your own family portrait, one Christmas at a time, until you're just... a footnote. "Ma couldn't make it this year. She sends her love though!"

Now listen, before the comments section comes for me like a pack of wild hadedas — this isn't only about parents with grown kids living their international best lives. Some of you never had kids. Some of you have tiny kids who still think you're magic. Some are coparenting like you're running a small logistics company with an ex you'd rather not speak to. Some are single by choice and thriving. Some are remarried or engaged or happily partnered or "it's complicated" on a level that requires a spreadsheet. Some are "fine" 11 months a year until December arrives like a seasonal demon wearing tinsel and asking uncomfortable questions about your life.

The details differ. The addresses differ. The bank accounts and relationship statuses and passport stamps all differ. But the FEELING? The weird hollow ache that shows up in December like an uninvited guest who ate all your snacks and won't leave? That's universal for us expats. Because it doesn't matter what your story is — December has this absolutely DELIGHTFUL way of highlighting exactly who is NOT at your table. And when you're an expat, that list gets longer every year like a Checkers slip you can't afford. You miss your ma's roast potatoes that she makes with that specific seasoning she refuses to write down. Your dad's terrible jokes that got worse every year but you'd give anything to hear one more. Your sibling's kids growing up on WhatsApp, becoming strangers with your genes. Your best friend from school, back when "home" was a place you could drive to instead of a philosophical question that keeps you awake at 2 a.m. eating Speculoos directly from the packet like a wounded raccoon with wifi.

You get invited to your colleague's "gezellig" Christmas dinner (because of course you do, they're nice people, they're trying) and you spend the whole evening smiling with your eyes like you're in a customer service training video, nodding along to traditions you don't understand, pretending you know what "gourmetten" is (it's a table grill thing, apparently, very exciting, sure), wondering if it's rude to cry into the stamppot, and secretly Googling "how to be gezellig when your soul is permanently stuck in traffic on the N1." GEZELLIG. That word haunts us expats like a beautiful ghost we can't quite become no matter how many stroopwafels we eat or how enthusiastically we say "lekker" when we mean it's absolutely NOT lekker. It means cozy. Warm. Togetherness. All those lovely things you're SUPPOSED to feel during the holidays. All the things currently missing from your chest cavity like someone stole your emotional ribs. You're supposed to feel gezellig but actually you feel like an imposter in a second-hand Christmas jumper from the kringloopwinkel, questioning every life choice that led to this exact moment, sitting in a country that isn't yours, eating food that isn't yours, with people who are lovely but also... not YOUR people, you know?

But here's the truth, and I need you to hear it properly through whatever device you're reading this on (probably your phone, in bed, at a time you should definitely be sleeping) — WE ARE ALL PRETENDING WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING. Every single one of us. The Dutch people at that gezellig dinner? Faking it. They're stressed about the in-laws and the budget and whether they bought enough bitterballen. The expats smiling in Christmas market photos with their glühwein? DEFINITELY faking it. That cup cost €6, it tastes like depression with cinnamon, and they're one overpriced bratwurst away from a full breakdown. That super put-together person with the perfect table settings and the Instagram-worthy decorations? They cried in their car at the Jumbo parking lot this morning, panic-bought wine they can't afford, and are now running on spite and Calvé pindakaas.

Everyone's missing someone. Everyone's carrying something. Everyone's trying to act normal in a season that's specifically designed to make you feel deeply abnormal if your life doesn't look like a Hallmark movie filmed in a tax bracket you'll never visit, starring people who don't have to worry about things like "international transfer fees" or "will my VPN work so I can watch Carte Blanche." So here's what I need you to understand, and this is the important bit — put down your phone for a second (I know, I know, ironic), stop doom-scrolling through everyone else's highlight reel, and LISTEN: Stop sitting alone in your apartment pretending you're fine when you are clearly, OBVIOUSLY not fine. I can see you from here. You're reading this at a weird hour. You've got that look. The one that says "I'm independent and I don't need anyone" but actually means "I'm so lonely I'm considering adopting a plant just so something depends on me."

Isolation is a sneaky little doos, boet. It dresses up fancy as "self-care" and "independence" and "I'm just an introvert who needs space" while quietly convincing you that everyone else has people and you don't, everyone else is laughing at tables full of loved ones and you're here alone eating two-minute noodles and calling it "dinner" like you're not one sad documentary away from a full crisis. Loneliness at Christmas hits different. It's not the regular kind you can push through with a good series and some Uber Eats. It sits on your chest like a cat you didn't ask for and whispers absolute NONSENSE until you start believing it. Stuff like "nobody wants you there" and "you're too much" and "everyone's got their own families, you'd just be a burden."

ALL LIES. Absolute RUBBISH. Which brings me to your mission — and this isn't a suggestion, this is a directive from your internet ouma who loves you and will klap you if necessary — BE THERE FOR EACH OTHER. Check on that person in the expat group who's been quiet lately. The one who used to comment on everything and now just... doesn't. Send them a message, a REAL one, not just an emoji: "Hey, you good? Want to come over and eat my questionable attempt at roast chicken while we complain about the weather and how everything here closes on Sundays for no good reason?"

Invite that person you barely know to your half-assed Christmas braai. Yes, it's a Weber on a balcony. Yes, you're using Albert Heijn meat that costs too much and tastes wrong. Yes, your boerewors is actually just spicy sausage you're lying about. DO IT ANYWAY. Post in the group: "Right, I'm alone today, I have too much wine and unresolved childhood trauma and a Spotify playlist that's 60% Freshlyground. Who's coming over?" I GUARANTEE you — I will put MONEY on this — you'll get forty-seven replies going "SAME BOET, WHAT'S YOUR ADDRESS" faster than you can say "Nando's delivery takes how long in this country?"

Because here's the secret that nobody wants to admit: Everyone wants to be invited. Everyone. That confident-looking person? Wants to be invited. That quiet one?

DESPERATELY wants to be invited. That person who always says no? Still wants to be ASKED. They're all just sitting there thinking the same thing you're thinking — "I don't want to be a burden" or "they probably have plans" or "I'm too much of a mess right now, I'll bring down the vibe." But if YOU make the first move? If YOU say "Come over, bring nothing, we're going to be disasters together and that's the whole point"? People will SPRINT to your door like you're giving away free data and biltong.

So here's what we're going to do this Christmas, whether you've got kids spread across six continents like a very expensive geography lesson, or kids you see every other weekend, or no kids, or grown kids, or stepkids, or a situation so complicated it requires a PowerPoint presentation to explain — CREATE RIDICULOUS NEW TRADITIONS. Not the ones you lost. Not the ones Instagram says you should have. Not the ones your ouma had that you're trying desperately to recreate in a country that doesn't sell the right ingredients. NEW ones. WEIRD ones. YOURS.

Examples from the chaotic archives of people who've survived this nonsense:

• Christmas breakfast is leftover gatsby if you can find gatsby bread abroad (if you can't, it's just feelings on toast with extra Mayo). Wearing your Springbok jersey to Christmas dinner because assimilation is a myth and you're not even trying anymore, and if anyone asks you can explain the entire 2019 World Cup in uncomfortable detail. Watching Crazy Rich Asians instead of Christmas movies because at least it's about family dysfunction you can relate to, and nobody's pretending everything's fine when it's clearly not. Sending your expat friends voice notes in Afrikaans at maximum volume so the algorithm has a full panic attack trying to figure out what language you're even speaking. Having a "Worst Christmas Memory" competition where everyone shares their most traumatic December story (the divorce, the food poisoning, the year someone definitely said something they shouldn't have after too much brandy) and the winner gets a bottle of wine, a hug, and the validation that their pain is SEEN. Going to whatever counts as a beach in your new country on Christmas Day just to feel SOMETHING that resembles home, even though the water's freezing and you're wearing three layers and someone's kid is crying because "this isn't a real beach, Mom."

• Hosting a "Gezellig But Make It South African" dinner where everyone brings one dish from home — or the closest approximation they can manage with European ingredients that are all WRONG — and you spend the whole evening complaining about how nothing tastes right but at least you're complaining TOGETHER, which is basically the foundation of our entire culture. The point isn't to make it perfect. The point is to make it survivable. To make it YOURS. To take all the broken pieces of what Christmas used to be (the family, the heat, the belonging, the feeling that you were exactly where you were supposed to be) and build something new that doesn't hurt quite as much. Something that says "This isn't what I pictured, but it's what I've got, and I'm going to squeeze some joy out of it even if it kills me."

  
  

And most importantly — BE GEZELLIG EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT. Fake it. Show up. Bring wine or feelings or both (both is good, both is honest). Just don't sit alone in your apartment at Christmas convincing yourself you're fine when you're clearly not fine and everyone in the expat group can see your "online" status at 3 a.m., which means you're also not sleeping and probably eating Speculoos directly from the package while having an existential crisis about whether you made the right life choices. (You did. You're brave. You're just also tired and far from home and that's allowed.)

Your best this Christmas might be hosting a full fancy dinner with all the trimmings and homemade everything. OR your best might be putting on pants and leaving the house and not crying in public. BOTH COUNT. Both are victories. Both deserve celebration and possibly a medal.

So here's my Christmas wish for all of us scattered South Africans with homesickness, visa stress, complicated families, brave grown kids living their lives, empty chairs at tables we set anyway, full hearts that are also somehow breaking, and that very specific type of exhaustion that comes from constantly explaining yourself in a country that doesn't fully get you: May we admit we're not fine. May we reach out anyway. May we accept help even when it feels vulnerable. May we be messy because perfect is exhausting and also fake. And may we keep making a plan — because that's what we DO, that's our THING, that's in our DNA right next to the part that makes us put Mrs Balls on everything.

We don't give up. We adapt. We survive. We find each other in Facebook groups and awkward work dinners and random conversations in the "international" aisle at Jumbo where we're all hunting for something that tastes like home. We build new families out of strangers who understand what it's like to be far. We laugh when we should probably cry. We cry when we should probably laugh. And somehow, SOMEHOW, it works out — because we're doing it together.

Geseënde Kersfees, my beautiful complicated disasters. You're doing better than you think. Way better. And if you're reading this at 3 a.m. feeling like the only person in the world who's struggling — you're not alone, boet. You're just far. And that's different. We see you. Now go. Be brave. Be messy. Be gezellig even if you have to fake it. (Especially if you have to fake it.) We've got you. ❤️🇿🇦