An expat Christmas runs differently. Everyone has their own take on what Christmas should be. My husband and I have alternative traditions: he opens gifts in the morning, we wait until after lunch. He sends presents from Santa, but Santa only brings stockings to my parents’ house. But despite these minor differences, our Christmas’ are the same. It’s cold, there’s too much food, we fall asleep after lunch watching the Queen’s Speech, we may go for walk wrapped up in mittens and scarves.
Our expat Christmas couldn’t be more different. We have spent Christmas on the beach, in the desert and in wine farms. We’ve spent our Christmas cooking traditional meals in 40 degrees heat. We’ve also tried to ‘go local’ and cooked a braai for our Christmas meal.
After 10 years I still find it hard to feel Christmassy when it’s scorching outside and the kids are jumping in the pool, so I asked fellow bloggers to share their Christmas experiences, and unsurprisingly they were all completely different but bonded by a shared missing of our family and our familial Christmas traditions.
An Expat Christmas in Malaysia
My family spent Christmas 2019 and Christmas 2020 in Malaysia. Despite being a predominately Muslim country, it loves to celebrate all holidays. All the malls set up over-the-top Christmas displays each year, even during the COVID lockdowns in 2020. We made it a family tradition in Malaysia to visit as many malls as we could to see all the displays. One even had fake snow falling indoors!
We were fortunate to live in a condo complex in Kuala Lumpur where expats from all over the world lived. In 2019, a Malaysian-Japanese family arranged a huge expat Christmas party potluck for everyone to attend. Families from the USA, UK, Switzerland, India, Russia, France, Japan, and Malaysia contributed. It was truly a global holiday event!
Unfortunately, due to the lockdowns in 2020, large gatherings were prohibited. The large condo complex holiday party was cancelled. Instead, we booked a beach vacation with some fellow expat friends at a resort in southern Malaysia. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the resort had a variety of family activities planned. Santa even hand-delivered gifts to all resort guests by speed boat!
Overall, spending Christmas away from our home country in a tropical destination was truly a unique experience. The pandemic made it too hard to get home in 2020. We were fortunate to be in a location that still decked the malls, so we could enjoy that festive feeling. However, the true blessing was finding friends that felt like family with whom we could enjoy our holidays.
Contributed by Brodi Cole of Our Offbeat Life
An Expat Christmas in France
I am used to very traditional Christmas celebrations – a tree, carols, presents when it gets dark, dinner and potentially even a mess in church. But there’s not much else happening and mostly, the festivities are over by 9 pm.
My first Christmas in France was a surprise. Christmas in France is mainly about food. Of course, there’s a tree – to my shock often a plastic one, and presents, but the highlight of Christmas Eve in France are the different food items.
There is no traditional French Christmas dinner without oysters, duck liver pate (foie gras), smoked or gravlax style salmon, lots of exquisite Champagne and, of course, the Bûche de Noël, a sponge cake yule log.
Given the many Christmas must-eats, it is easily midnight when it’s finally time for dessert and the last glass of bubbly Champagne.
But not only the sheer amount of food left me slightly astonished. France is a very secular country and even though Christmas is a Christian feast, the religious elements are less present than what I know from home. Expat Christmas in France might not be the most solemn event, but in my experience, it’s a warm and welcoming family event with the focus on exactly this… togetherness.
Contributed by Lena from Salut from Paris
An Expat Christmas in the Philippines
Life in the Philippines is a bit of an emotional roller coaster during an expat Christmas, as you miss your family, but it’s hard not to turn that frown upside down when celebrating Christmas in the Philippines.
Locals here go CRAZY for Christmas. The Philippines has been known as the world’s most Christmas-happy country, where the Christmas season starts in early September. For four solid months, the country goes all out with elaborate decorations. All over town, you will see flashing holiday lights, giant candy cakes, fake Christmas trees, and a local Santa Claus in full winter gear sweating in the tropical heat.
Over 90% of the Philippines are Christians, one of the most Catholic countries in the world. Christmas in the Philippines is a holiday, culture, lifestyle, and way of life. For four straight months, you can expect neighbourhood parades, nearly daily holiday parties, and weekly yuletide concerts.
Then there is church- lots and lots of church. Local tradition involves going to evening mass every night from December 16th to Christmas Eve. There is even a local superstition that perfect attendance in church for all nine days grants you one wish.
Marco Sison, Retirement Coach at Nomadic FIRE
An Expat Christmas in Australia
Spending Christmas away from home is always a strange feeling.
In 2017, I was travelling through Australia during Christmas time, which was unusual not only because I was by myself but also because it was summer down under. I was in tropical Queensland right by the beach and temperatures were above 30 degrees. As I was working a lot, I barely realised the holidays were approaching until they were almost there. I worked on Christmas Eve because hourly rates are incredibly high on public holidays in Australia. I finished at around 8 pm and spend the rest of the night with friends I hadn’t even known for that long, but we had a fantastic time together.
Facetime with family back home felt strange since it was the early evening for them, while it was already the middle of the night for me. The next day I had the day off of work and I made the most of it by going to the beach with a paddleboard and exploring the sandbanks.
It was absolutely fantastic and didn’t feel strange at all. I loved the expat Christmas in the warm weather and although I missed my loved ones; it was a memorable experience.
Victoria from Guide Your Travel
An Expat Christmas in Spain
As an expat, living and travelling in Spain and expat Christmas or Navidad differs from home in the UK. Most years, we can sit out on the terrace enjoying the sunshine, often in a t-shirt and shorts! Compare that to the usually chilly and often wet weather back home, and it’s a real treat!
Spain always seems less commercial during the festive season, with more emphasis on family than shopping, which is a refreshing change. Christmas Day is also not their big day, but Christmas Eve or Nochebuena is when it all happens, with extended families gathering in the evening for a big feast of lamb, roast suckling pig and seafood.
By the time Uk schools have gone back, Spanish kids are getting excited about January 6th. This is Three Kings or Tres Reyes Magos day and most towns and cities organise a special event the day before when floats parade through the streets carrying musicians, artists, people in fancy dress and the Three Kings, who wave to all the children as they pass by. That night, all the kids clean their shoes and leave them for the Three Kings to put a gift in when they visit in the small hours of the morning!
Izzy from The Gap Decaders
An Expat Christmas in Kenya
As expats, our Christmas in Kenya is different from the traditional Kenyan way. Many Kenyans will spend the whole of Christmas Eve on a night vigil called Kesha before starting celebrations on Christmas Day. Christmas Day will always involve a church service, often with a nativity before family and friends come together for Nyama Choma, essentially, a BBQ, a goat or cow may be slaughtered and often entire communities join to celebrate the feast. Most years we have lived in Kenya we have been on the coast. 30 degrees plus, days spend on the beach. We often visit a restaurant for lunch as who wants to cook when it is so hot. For this year, we have decided to remain in Nairobi and will cook a traditional meal at home with just family. We are going to try to make it as close as possible to our UK Christmas’s although this may be difficult with it being the hottest time of the year.
An Expat Christmas in Colombia
Who would have thought the land of eternal spring would be a hot spot for Christmas. My family and I are currently in Medellin, Colombia this holiday season, and we are surprised by how big Christmas is here.
To kick off the holiday season, there is a large fireworks display on December 1st to start the celebrations. The fireworks go for hours from midnight to nearly four in the morning. That was a surprise for us, as we stayed up to watch the display. Luckily, our toddler slept through the entire thing, but the fireworks aren’t just for the 1st of the month.
There are lights and decorations everywhere you look. The city with 1,000 malls turns its malls into Winter Wonderlands. There are magic shows, ice-skating rinks, and Christmas displays everywhere. In each mall, there is a large Christmas tree with some standing well over 100 ft. tall.
Throughout the entire month of December, there are fireworks all over the city. On December 7th, Colombia celebrates Día de las velitas (Little Candles Day) in celebration of the immaculate conception and to honor the Virgin Mary.
You can see candles light up the night as they honor the Virgin Mary. Along with the lighting of candles, some cities have fireworks and music for dancing.
We watched locals celebrate the traditional holiday in Guatape and were blown away. We watched a parade of hundreds of people walking through the street with candles to show their respects to their religion.
Christmas in Medellin has been amazing to see. We plan to see more lights in some of the most popular parks, with Parque Norte being known for having the best light display, so we’re excited to see what else the city has to offer this holiday season.
Book Your Kenya Trip – Insider Tips
Find everything you need for visiting Kenya on my TRAVEL RESOURCES page.
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- Kenya Accommodation: Booking.com has the cheapest rates for hotels and guest houses in Kenya.
- Accommodation Reviews: TripAdvisor is my go-to portal for checking reviews on accommodation/restaurants in the local area. I never book without checking TripAdvisor first.
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- Tours and Guides in Kenya : Check out Get Your Guide and Viator – reputable companies that do tours within Kenya and East Africa.
- Travel Insurance: Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. I recommend Visitors Coverage, which covers you for East Africa and offers ‘special insurance’ for safaris and adventure sports:
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- Compensair – if you have a cancelled or delayed flight, you may get a refund.