为什么很多年轻人享受“独自过节”？| 华盛顿邮报

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选文来源 20241220 | The Washington Post

They love their family. They just want to spend Christmas alone.

“I am honestly just so excited to spend Christmas by myself,” said Shannon Rosa, a nurse who is seeking solitude this holiday season.

Last year, Brian Brister had his ideal Christmas: He drank eggnog, made breakfast, watched Christmas movies and got dressed up for a fancy four-course dinner. He did it all completely alone, and it was delightful.

“I did exactly what I wanted to do all day,” said Brister, 37, a photographer, singer and health coach based in Nashville. “It was weird in some ways but really special in others.”

Brister’s family gathers every year in Mississippi for the holidays — which, in addition to the expense and planning, means the slog of holiday travel for him.

“It ends up being a lot of work,” said Brister. “I love the holiday season, but I always feel a bit let down on Christmas Day that it’s not all I hoped it would be.”

Plus, “even though I love my family, and my family is super close, there are always going to be moments of stress that come with all of us being in a room together for multiple days,” he added. “The fact that there was none of that was beautiful.”

Brister is part of a growing group of people who have loving families but are choosing to spend the holiday solo. Some are introverts who don’t enjoy high-pressure gift exchanges; others are taking a break from caroling with judgy or drunk relatives; and some adore togetherness with their families — just not on Christmas.

Many who have done it say it’s underrated and empowering, and people who are planning to do it for the first time this year say they’re excited to soak up some much-needed tranquility.

“We have stopped asking ourselves what we want in order to give everything to other people,” Brister said. “Sometimes, it is totally okay to say, ‘What is best for me in this moment?’ And do that.”

Experts attribute people’s desire to spend Christmas alone to several factors, including that family gatherings can be intense, and when they’re mixed with holiday preparations, travel and spending money on gifts, stress levels can skyrocket. Studies show that Americans’ stress levels rise around the holidays. But you didn’t need a study to tell you that.

The stigma around choosing to spend holidays alone is shifting, including on social media, where some people are celebrating and luxuriating in their holiday aloneness.

“Norms are changing,” said Thuy-vy Nguyen, a social psychologist who founded Durham University’s Solitude Lab in England. “We see that single-adult households are on the rise in the developed world, and more people stay single or get married later.”

Nguyen — co-author of “Solitude: The Science and Power of Being Alone” — emphasized that solitude and loneliness are not the same.

“When we talk about loneliness, we’re talking about a negative experience, both at a cognitive and emotional level,” Nguyen said. “As researchers, we tend to treat solitude more as a state of being alone.”

Choice, Nguyen said, is a critical factor. Someone deciding to spend the holidays alone is wholly different from someone who feels forced to based on their circumstances. She said that if someone does not opt in to solitude, it can feel like isolation, which is part of the loneliness epidemic across the country that is a serious health threat.

“One of the very key elements of solitude that determines how we feel in it is the element of choice and autonomy,” she said. “That said … prolonged solitude can add up to loneliness.”

In other words, be mindful not to detach yourself from socialization. Loneliness has been shown to promote problems such as depression and even increase the risk for dementia.

Shannon Rosa, a neonatal intensive-care-unit nurse in Atlanta, was seeking solitude this holiday season. So she booked a trip for one to New York City for Christmas.

“I’m in a career where I give a lot of myself mentally, emotionally and physically, and I realized I need to give myself something this year,” said Rosa, 25. “The time that you give yourself is just as important as the time you give to other people.”

This will be her first year venturing off on her own for Christmas. She said her family in New Jersey and Georgia were understanding about her decision.

“I am honestly just so excited to spend Christmas by myself,” said Rosa, who is hoping to attend a Radio City Rockettes performance and see the towering Rockefeller Christmas tree. “There is bliss in making decisions on your own about what you want to do with your time.”

Practicing solitude has several psychological perks, studies have shown, including that it inspires creativity and promotes calmness.

“The benefits of solitude come from the emotional and cognitive freedom that it affords us,” Nguyen said, adding that, for solitude to be restorative, a person needs to embrace the quiet moments rather than try to escape them.

Liz Ivy had a similar epiphany to Rosa two years ago, when she decided to have her first solo Christmas at home in D.C. She enjoyed it so much, she said, that she opted to do it again the following year — and she is planning to spend this Christmas on her own, as well.

“The holidays are kind of stressful; there’s a lot going on, there’s a lot of pressure,” said Ivy, 30, who in prior years traveled to the San Francisco area to spend Christmas with her family. “I would come back after the holidays feeling so drained and depleted.”

Like Brister, Ivy said she often feels melancholy around Christmastime.

“Any event where there’s a lot of anticipation typically doesn’t live up to expectations,” she said. “I’ve always felt a little sad on Christmas. I feel like there’s always some sort of let down.”

Ivy visits California for Thanksgiving every year, and given the proximity between the two holidays, she decided the back-to-back travel was too tiring to take on.

“I have this obligation to go home because I’ve always done it, but I can flip the switch; I don’t always have to go home,” said Ivy, who works in sales and recently moved to New York City. “I realized I need to take care of myself first.”

Her inaugural Christmas on her own was in 2022, and her family didn’t take it well.

“I told them in person on Thanksgiving, and it almost ruined Thanksgiving,” Ivy said, explaining that she feared her family would think she was ungrateful for them, which is far from the truth. “I felt pretty guilty when I made the choice.”

One family member noted that they could understand if she wanted to spend the holidays with a partner, but the fact that she was choosing to spend Christmas alone is what made her decision so hurtful.

“That was really a moment for me where I was like, ‘Why is there such a standard in society where I could choose to spend the holidays with a partner, and that would be fine, but me choosing to spend it alone is seen as such a bad thing?’” said Ivy. “It shouldn’t make a difference.”

When she told friends and colleagues about her decision to spend Christmas alone, they responded with a sad look and a woeful “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t like it,” Ivy said of their reactions.

But as Christmas approached, Ivy said, she felt increasingly jazzed about the prospect of spending the holiday in her own company.

“The closer it got, the more I was like, ‘I can’t wait. I’ve designed this amazing day, and I’m so excited for it,’” she said, adding that she decided to share her Christmas plans on TikTok to lessen the stigma around spending the holidays solo and inspire others who were contemplating doing the same thing. “It was actually a really exciting process for me to think through; take away the stress and the pressure and think, ‘What are my favorite things to do at the holidays?’”

Ivy sets the tone by decorating a Christmas tree, lighting candles and playing festive music.

She plans to start off Christmas Eve as she has the past couple of years by going to a local coffee shop to read a book. Then she’ll buy flowers for herself and visit a museum. After cooking a comforting dinner, she’ll close out the night with a bath and face mask.

On Christmas Day, Ivy usually goes to a workout class in the morning before grabbing a coffee and heading out on a long stroll. She’ll cook herself a comforting meal — such as fresh pasta with meatballs and a homemade lemon cake for dessert. She likes to end the night by doing a puzzle.

“Prioritizing the things you love about the holidays brings back a lot of joy in celebrating that I often find difficult when traveling,” said Ivy.

She also sets aside time to video-chat with her family on Christmas.

“It is very intentional time, and we’re able to do something together without me flying all the way across the country,” she said.

While she’s still single, Ivy plans to continue her tradition of spending Christmas by herself until she starts a family of her own.

“The best Christmases I’ve had in my adult life have been the ones I’ve spent alone,” she said. “It can be a really empowering experience.” ■