I left the UK for Australia 15 years ago

Christmas for Clare Jones involves bringing a turkey and mulled wine to her friend’s house, eating a buffet, soaking up the Australian sun and having a pool party with her husband, son and friends. “It sucks,” she said.

Jones, 45, moved from Coventry to Perth 15 years ago and, for the most part, loves the life she has built with her partner and son Lewis, 9,000 miles from her childhood home. Her office is on the beach, she runs on the sand on her lunch break, and she has a swimming pool. It’s what she’s dreamed of since the age of seven, when she told her parents that one day she would live in Australia – although she didn’t visit until she was twenty.

But when winter comes to England – and it’s warm in Perth – she just wants to go home, wrapped in a big coat, surrounded by her family. “Christmas is a nightmare. You don’t see people selling mulled wine, there are no festive markets. This is what I grew up with and this is how it should be. It’s nostalgic. The UK absolutely goes to town, but here it seems so wrong. I feel like you can’t walk down a main street in London without lights, but here it’s hot and everyone is in shorts and T-shirts.

She also feels isolated from her family. She asked to be removed from the WhatsApp group after seeing them making plans and left her with Fomo. “It’s horrible. My sister always sends me pictures of the snow or our family gatherings and I really miss them. I love my family and they’re really cute because they caption a photo with “Only a few people missing” but that makes me feel even worse.

Last year, for the first time since moving in 2009, she experienced Christmas in the UK again. His son Lewis, 12, saw it for the first time. As they hadn’t been back for seven years due to expenses and Covid, they were fitting in a lot: a day at Chatsworth House, a mini break in Scotland, the Coventry Christmas markets, Lapland and petting the reindeer in Aviemore. “Even English pubs are so festive, they go to town, the little country pubs with all the Christmas trees and lights everywhere. It’s not the same here.

Even though she stayed with her family, cooped up with her nieces, nephews, sister, mum, dad and son in a three bedroom house, she still spent over £7,000 and there’s no way she could do it every year. It made this Christmas even harder. “I have forever ruined Australian Christmas for us, Lewis wants to go back to the UK and I want to come home every Christmas.”

She is doing her best to instill British traditions in Australia to help. With Lewis, she watches festive films, decorates the tree and cooks turkey on Christmas morning. She can’t start December 25 without the smell of roasting meat. It reminds her of her childhood, sitting around the table at her grandparents’ house and eating Christmas dinner with the Queen’s Speech on the television in the background.

All over the world, it’s a different story. “I know I should accept where I am. We have amazing friends who have adopted us as family, but it’s just not the same. They do a lovely job decorating but after Christmas dinner we all get really hot and have to go in the pool. I always say we have to have air conditioning but I wish it was a fire. I ask my partner if we can rent a snow machine just to make it feel like Christmas.

And her partner and stepsons don’t seem to be adopting British ways. “I absolutely love The snowman. But when I put it on for my stepsons, they said it was “bullshit.” They never even built a snowman.

Jones moved years ago, but this year many might feel the same way as overseas moves become more popular. According to the National Statistics Office, in 2014, 320,000 people emigrated, while last year the figure was 532,000.

“Stuffing and sauce are not the same in the United States”

Anthony Waldron, who moved to New York in 2013, says the isolation and loneliness he feels at Christmas are difficult to bear. Every December, his family, including his mother, cousins, nieces, nephews and brother, throws a Christmas party that he has not been able to attend in years. The whole family reunites but Waldron, his wife and his son have disappeared.

“It’s quite hard. My family is great and we end up doing video calls, but it’s bittersweet,” he says. “It’s good to get together and share stories, but it’s not the same as being there in the room. Christmases here are very different.

His four-year-old son was born in New York, where Waldron moved to live with his American wife – they met while she was studying in the UK more than 10 years ago. The move was difficult because he left his mother behind. As his father died when he was 10 and his brother is ten years older, for many years Waldron and his mother were home alone. Now he only sees her once or twice a year.

“It’s lonely. If we didn’t have the technology, if we couldn’t use Skype, we would feel it even more. We talk to the neighbors and ask them what they are doing for Christmas and they always say they are going to see family. This almost rubs salt in the wound.

Christmas traditions are so different in America that, Waldron says, it’s hard to feel festive. With Thanksgiving only a month before, it is common to eat turkey in November but not at Christmas. But for Waldron: “It has to be turkey at Christmas.” I don’t have anything else.

But even that is not the same. “The stuffing and the gravy, there are some brands that I remember having as a kid that aren’t available here.” The smell of boiling water being poured over Paxo instantly reminds him of Christmas, but it’s rare for him to get it unless he ships it to the United States in advance. “The smell of Christmas dinner.” For me, it’s typically Christmas.

Other childhood traditions, like visiting Santa’s grotto, aren’t common there or are very expensive, so he feels guilty that his son Jack doesn’t experience the little things he remembers . He speaks wistfully of his own “classic Christmas” growing up. His father and uncle would go for drinks at the local cricket club, his mother and aunt would cook and everyone would get together for dinner.

With them alone at home on December 25, it doesn’t seem so special. “My son is four now and is really starting to understand Santa and the countdown. It feels like something is missing.

When he arrives in the UK, they take a six-hour flight to Dublin and then a separate flight to Birmingham. They get an Airbnb for a week, usually in the summer, and rent a car to see family. It costs over $4,000 (around £3,150) and at Christmas it would cost even more. With the cost of living increasing and gifts to buy for Jack, this is not sustainable.

“There’s something about the social culture of the UK, about going out with your neighbors for a cup of tea or bringing the kids together in a park. In the United States, everyone stays alone. I think part of it is because I didn’t grow up here, everyone already has their family or friends nearby with the people they want to go to school with. It’s almost like they don’t have room for other people.

He is mostly happy with life in America, he likes the climate and the proximity to the beach, but he still wants his family to be nearby. His wife’s family lives 800 miles away in Buffalo. “On Sunday you can get out of bed and go to the beach, but even that is bittersweet because we don’t share it with anyone. We always say it would be great if the cousins ​​were there. During the summer in the UK, my cousins ​​say they’re having a Saturday barbecue and we see the photos of everyone getting together and just think we’re missing out.

Recently, Waldron and his wife discussed returning to England to give their son the family closeness they hold so dear. Christmas is a big factor in this decision.

Other expats, like Gillian Harvey, have already returned for this reason. Harvey moved to France with her husband in 2009 to live a cheaper and less stressful life. They were both teachers, burned out and knew they could afford to buy a house if they left their home town of St Albans.

At first, they loved it. “It was like getting completely off a treadmill. It was really relaxing. They bought a house in a small village for 180,000 euros, had their first son and lived a quiet life. Harvey began teaching online and writing books and her husband took early retirement. They have since had four more children and are now 14, 12, 11 and nine years old.

When they first moved, they had every intention of returning home every Christmas and a few times throughout the year, but as the family grew, the logistics became impossible – and the The trip cost £4,000. It was money they would rather spend on a beach holiday than a trip to Hertfordshire.

Although Harvey is happy that her children had a “gentle” upbringing in a rural French town, come December she still felt immense pressure to have a good Christmas. “Kids have high expectations of Christmas and it’s really hard to work to maintain that level of excitement when it’s just you and the kids. Growing up, we would go see someone, share their Christmas, look at their tree, and be with relatives. That was the hardest thing: trying to keep the Christmas spirit alive,” she says.

The holiday season in France also surprised her. The locals ate a “fancy meal” on Christmas Eve, and Boxing Day is a normal day.

“Christmas is supposed to be a time when you get nostalgic for family and everything takes on that glow. All the festive films are about going home and seeing the people you love and I was just like, “What am I doing here?” “. When we were in a small village, you would go out and see no one. When we moved to a city, something would happen, but on a small scale.

“Sometimes a family member would send a photo of them all together celebrating. It was supposed to be a good thing – like, Merry Christmas, look at us all together – but it felt like a stab in the heart.

This year, a few months ago, Harvey brought his family back to England and they settled in Norfolk.

She is very excited about the idea of ​​her children being able to experience what she remembers growing up: family board games, seeing loved ones and “sharing a bit of Christmas with everyone”. With her parents and four siblings together, it’s the first time her five children have experienced a big family reunion in December and she can’t wait.