Coming home. What does “home” mean? Is it the place where you grew up? The house where your parents now live? The one where your teenage bedroom still has yellowing posters stuck to the walls? Who’s in that house? Your immediate family? Siblings, cousins, uncles? Your grandparents, if you’re lucky? Your childhood friends?
And what happens when, for one reason or another, there’s no home to go back to? When there’s no loving and caring family waiting? What if the only place you could call “home” is thousands of miles away, and you don’t have the money or time off work to return? What if a global pandemic makes travel impossible?
These possibilities, these scenarios, are so common that, in my almost eight years living in the UK, I’ve seen or experienced all of them. I thought this might be a good time to reflect on all this while I wait for my flight back to Edinburgh from Málaga.
This is the eighth Christmas I’ll spend away from my childhood home, and every year has been transformative—because I am not the same person I once was. My flight leaves in an hour and a half. I arrived early. Let me tell you about it.
2017
My first year. I arrived in Edinburgh on 1st July with no clear plan. My English was poor, and I had a long road ahead before I could even think of applying to university. I found a job in the kitchen of a restaurant in a department store that no longer exists.
The pain in my legs kept me awake at night; the steam from the dishwasher burned my face. I worked and worked until the soles of my shoes wore through. It was my first summer in Edinburgh, and somehow, it all felt worth it.
Then winter came, and I had never felt so lonely. The cold seeped into my bones, unaccustomed to anything but southern Spain’s heat. And the loneliness—heavier than the cold—settled in my chest. I needed my family.
I asked at work if I could go home. “Not a chance,” they said. I was needed for the entire festive period. An exception? Then they’d have to do it for everyone.
So I left. There was no other option.
I went back home jobless, my English barely better than when I’d left, and eight kilos lighter. My grandmother hugged me, felt my bones through my jumper, and said nothing. She just cried. But I was home. Six months wasn’t so long. Everything was the same.
I ate my favourite dishes, saw friends who dropped everything to see me, to listen to my stories. My hometown never felt more alive than the first time I came back. Nostalgia made me see everything as meant for me. Why leave when things are just fine?
I stayed for thirty days, and I almost didn’t go back. What had I achieved in those six months? A tiny room shared with a flatmate whom I hated. No friends. A grueling, underpaid job. A long way still to go with my English. Everything I needed was here. Why go back to a place that had spat me out? Where there was nothing for me?
And yet, I did.
2019
Second year at university. I live with friends now, and my job is manageable. Life flows. It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad either. Everything is fine.
I work on Christmas Eve. I have to go to Aberdeen in the morning and won’t be back until 9pm. By then, everything will be closed. Most of my flatmates are abroad; only two of us remain. Both of us Spanish. He doesn’t celebrate Christmas with his family so he doesn’t feel the absence. I, on the other hand, punish myself for failing mine.
At 9:30pm, I get home. My flatmate is waiting for dinner. We head to the only kebab shop still open, and I splurge on the priciest option: lamb. For dessert, only stale mince pies are left, but we don’t mind. We finish a bottle of cheap wine we find in the fridge and head to bed early.
That night, Santa didn’t come. Instead, on Christmas Day, a friend who also couldn’t go home invited us to his flat. He made lasagne. More people arrived—too many. There wasn’t enough space, but it didn’t matter. We ate, drank, laughed, played cards.
I thought of them, my family, far away. I locked myself in the bathroom to call them. They were all there, gathered around the table, their faces glowing like sunlight on a snowy hill. Our first year apart.
I returned to the party. They carried on with their meal. Somehow we managed to share our joy.
2021
A pandemic. Almost 15 million dead. My home felt further away than ever this Christmas, but they were all still there. That was enough.
2024
This year was different. I returned, and they welcomed me with the same enthusiasm. A job, a flat, a boyfriend, lots of projects. They thought I’d finally made it: the life I’d been twisting myself into knots for these past eight years.
What they didn’t understand was how I felt when I no longer knew where things were kept anymore. I tried to cook and couldn’t find my way around the kitchen. My sister had painted my old room and made it her own. I didn’t understand the slang; I hardly had any friends left.
At first, the days were vibrant, full of life and plans. But over time, I started to feel like a burden. There was no space for me here. My sister let me sleep in her room (my old one) and lent me her clothes. They didn’t ask me so many questions anymore; they guessed the answers.
We gathered around the table. Everyone was still there. The food, the fire, the sun. Christmas at the beach, New Year’s at home. The dubbed films, the songs, the faces I knew so well, now a little more wrinkled.
When we got in the car to head to the airport, I hugged my grandparents tightly, memorising the texture of their clothes, the smell of their skin. My father and sister sat calmly in the front seats—they knew I’d be back. My plane lands and the tram takes me to the penultimate stop. Months of cold and darkness ahead of me. I think of early dawns at work, sunsets at 3:30pm, the rain, the ice, my legs now strong as they climb the stairs.
You open the door. We exchange gifts. I think of the morning and the pitch-black night. A single ray of sunlight streams through the window and falls on your cheek, the one I’m about to kiss.
The day thanks me for trying to do my best with it as it gives me that little beam of sunlight before it sets, celebrating that, after all, I’ve come home.