If you're anything like me, then you probably also get incredibly sentimental during the holiday seasons, especially the end of year celebrations. It's a time for joy and jubilation for sure, but for many of us, it can be a dreaded event that reminds us of the loneliness of living abroad and being away from home. It is a time of reflecation and saying goodbye to what feels familiar, and embracing change.

First of all, Happy New Year to you all. May 2025 be a year full of love and blessings and achieving all your dreams. Thank you for reading my reviews on here for the last few months, and I hope this one provides you with some comfort or happiness today.

If I had to summarize my Christmas/New Years celebrations in Korea in a word, it would be: Empty. See, we don't really celebrate christams back home to begin with, and some families tend to not celebrate the new year either, so I was not familiar with the holiday spirits all that much. I was very surprised to see how the entire city of Seoul changes for the Holidays, and how everyone seems to be so invested and immersed in the celebrations.

My first year in Korea, I had gone home for the winter break, succesfully avoiding this lonely experience. But I wasn't so lucky the next two years, as I ended up spending my next winter break here, which I will be doing again this winter too.

I was not alone last year, but it was not enough to keep me from developing this strange sad feeling whenever winter was approaching. Something about the romantic connotation of Christmas and New Year's here just seemed to drive me further away from enjoying the celebrations, not to mention that most of my friends return home to spend these days with their families. I'm not alone this year either, in fact, I have more plans than I have ever had before. Yet, I still have to work to push down the negativity and see the start of a new year in a good light. I am not good with change, and I have already grown attached to 2024, especially since it was a year of huge growth for me.

If this rings true to you as well, here are some habits I've adopted to make this transition more bearable and anxiety free: