You knew when you accepted the assignment that you’d be away for the holidays.
At the time, it seemed manageable.
You looked at the calendar, thought about the opportunity, and decided you could handle one holiday away from home. Maybe you’ve missed holidays before because of work. Maybe the assignment was too good to pass up. Maybe traveling home simply wasn’t realistic this year.
Then the season actually arrives.
Suddenly, your family is talking about plans in the group chat. Decorations are going up at home. Someone asks when you’re coming back, even though you’ve already explained that you’re working. The traditions that felt months away when you signed your contract are now happening without you.
Spending your first holiday away from home on assignment can be harder than you expected, even if you’re happy with your decision to travel. You can love your assignment and still wish you were home. You can enjoy the people you’re with and still miss the people you aren’t.
The holiday may look different this year.
Different doesn’t have to mean bad.
Give Yourself Permission to Miss Home
You don’t have to pretend you’re completely fine with being away just because you chose the assignment.
You may have made the right career decision and still feel homesick.
Those things aren’t contradictory.
Holidays are tied to routines, people, food, places, and traditions. When you’re suddenly celebrating hundreds or thousands of miles away, it’s normal for the difference to feel more significant than an ordinary day away from home.
Sometimes travelers make it harder on themselves by feeling like they should be grateful for the adventure instead of sad about what they’re missing.
You can be grateful and homesick at the same time.
Let yourself miss home without turning that feeling into evidence that you made the wrong decision.
Find Out What Your Holiday Schedule Actually Looks Like
Before making plans, understand your work schedule.
Healthcare doesn’t stop for holidays, and travelers may have holiday requirements depending on the facility and contract.
Find out which days you’re scheduled, what your shift looks like, and whether there are any expectations surrounding the holiday period.
If you’re considering traveling home, don’t assume you’ll have enough time until you’ve looked at the entire schedule. A trip that sounds manageable can become exhausting if you’re trying to fly out immediately after a shift and return just before the next one.
You also don’t have to force a trip home simply because technically you can make it work.
Spending most of the holiday in airports, driving through winter weather, or arriving home exhausted for 18 hours may not give you the experience you’re hoping for.
Sometimes staying on assignment is the better choice.
Make a Plan Before the Holiday Arrives
The holiday itself tends to feel harder when you haven’t thought about what you’re going to do.
If you’re working, decide what you’d like to do before or after your shift.
If you’re off, make some kind of plan for the day.
It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but having something to look forward to can prevent the holiday from becoming a long stretch of scrolling through photos of everyone else’s celebrations.
Maybe you make your favorite meal, go somewhere festive, watch the movie your family always watches, meet up with another traveler, or schedule a long video call home.
You can also plan something for a different day if your work schedule makes celebrating on the actual holiday difficult.
Healthcare professionals have been moving holidays around the calendar for years.
December 25 doesn’t stop being Christmas because your family celebrates together on December 27.
Bring One Tradition With You
You don’t have to recreate your entire holiday at home.
Choose one piece of it.
Maybe your family always makes a particular breakfast. Maybe you watch the same movie every year. Maybe there’s a recipe that immediately tastes like the holidays to you. Maybe you wear ridiculous pajamas, decorate cookies, attend a church service, exchange a specific type of gift, or play the same game after dinner.
Bring that tradition with you.
If you can’t recreate it exactly, adapt it.
Make the recipe in your temporary kitchen. Stream the movie while your family watches from home. Find a local church service. Mail gifts ahead of time so everyone can open them together over video.
Traditions aren’t important because they happen in a particular building.
They’re important because they connect us to people and memories.
That connection can travel.
Make Your Temporary Housing Feel a Little Less Temporary
You don’t need to transform a furnished rental into a holiday movie set.
But a few small things can make a difference.
Put up a small tree if you want one. Add lights. Buy a holiday candle if they’re permitted in your rental. Hang a decoration you brought from home. Put holiday music on while you’re cooking.
If you celebrate another holiday, bring the traditions and decorations that make that season meaningful to you.
The goal isn’t to spend a fortune decorating somewhere you’ll leave in a few weeks.
It’s to make the space you’re actually living in feel connected to the season happening around you.
Temporary housing can feel especially impersonal during the holidays.
A little familiarity goes a long way.
Don’t Spend the Entire Day Watching Home From Your Phone
Social media can be wonderful when you’re away.
It can also make homesickness much worse.
You open your phone and see everyone gathering.
Your family is cooking.
Friends are celebrating.
Someone posts the exact tradition you normally participate in.
Before long, you’re watching the holiday happen everywhere except where you are.
Stay connected, but give yourself permission to put the phone down.
Call the people you want to talk to. Join the family video chat. Look at the photos.
Then go live your own day.
You aren’t required to spend the holiday as a spectator.
If You’re Working, Find Out What Your Team Does
Working a holiday can create its own kind of community.
Some departments organize a potluck. Someone brings desserts. People wear festive accessories if facility policy allows. Coworkers find small ways to make the shift feel different from an ordinary workday.
Ask what your team normally does.
If there’s a potluck, participate if you want to. Bring something from one of your family traditions or simply pick up something easy on the way to work.
The people beside you may be missing their own families too.
Permanent staff, travelers, physicians, therapists, technologists, nurses, laboratory professionals, and other healthcare workers can all find themselves spending part of the holiday at work.
You may not be celebrating with the people you expected.
That doesn’t mean you have to spend the day alone.
Check on the Other Travelers
If there are other travelers at your facility, ask what they’re doing.
You may discover several people are spending the holiday away from home.
Invite them over.
Go to dinner.
Have everyone bring a dish.
Watch a movie.
Order takeout and agree that nobody is cooking.
It doesn’t need to resemble anyone’s traditional holiday celebration.
In fact, sometimes the best assignment memories come from a group of people from completely different places creating something together because none of them could be where they normally would be.
You may start the day missing your usual traditions and end it with a new one.
Cook Something That Tastes Like Home
Food has an incredible ability to make a place feel familiar.
If there’s a dish your family always makes, see whether you can recreate it.
Call the person who makes it and ask for the recipe.
Be warned: if it’s a family recipe, the instructions may include extremely precise measurements such as “some,” “until it looks right,” and “you’ll know.”
Do your best.
If cooking an entire holiday meal in a temporary kitchen sounds miserable, don’t.
Make one favorite thing.
Or find a local restaurant serving something you love.
Or order pizza.
The holiday isn’t ruined because nobody made a turkey.
Schedule the Call Home
Don’t rely on catching everyone at a convenient moment.
Holiday schedules get chaotic.
Your family may be moving between houses, eating meals, opening gifts, attending services, visiting relatives, or managing children who have consumed an unreasonable amount of sugar.
Figure out when you’ll call ahead of time.
If you’re working, tell them when you’ll likely be available.
If you’re off, coordinate around the part of the celebration that’s most important to you.
Maybe you want to watch everyone open gifts. Maybe you want to join the family prayer. Maybe you just want 20 minutes when everyone is in the same room.
Having that connection planned can give you something to look forward to.
It also reduces the chance that you’ll call right when everyone has left for Grandma’s house.
Celebrate on a Different Day
The calendar is not in charge of your traditions.
If you’re working on the holiday, celebrate another day.
Healthcare families have been doing this forever.
Your holiday might happen the weekend before. It might happen three days later. You may fly home after your stretch of shifts and celebrate once everyone else has already put the leftovers away.
What matters is being together, not whether the date on the calendar is technically correct.
This can also take some pressure off your actual holiday shift. Instead of feeling like you’re completely missing the celebration, you’re simply moving yours.
You aren’t skipping the holiday.
You’re rescheduling it.
Create a Tradition That Only Exists Because You Travel
Your first holiday away doesn’t have to be a watered-down version of what you normally do at home.
You can create something completely new.
Maybe every holiday assignment includes trying a restaurant unique to the city.
Maybe you buy one ornament from every place you work.
Maybe you take a holiday photo somewhere recognizable in your assignment destination.
Maybe you volunteer, attend a local event, explore holiday lights, or cook dinner with other travelers.
If you continue traveling, those small traditions can follow you from assignment to assignment.
Years later, you may have a collection of ornaments from cities all over the country or photos of holidays spent in places you never expected to live.
The tradition becomes part of your travel story.
Remember That Your Family May Be Having a Hard Time Too
You’re not the only one adjusting.
Your parents may miss having you there.
Your children may not understand why you’re working away from home.
Your partner may be handling traditions without you.
Friends may be disappointed that you’re missing the annual gathering.
Sometimes that comes out as guilt.
“Are you sure you can’t come home?”
“It won’t be the same without you.”
“Can’t someone else work?”
Those comments can be difficult, especially if you’re already feeling emotional about being away.
Try to remember that they may be expressing the same thing you are.
They miss you.
Talk about how you’ll stay connected and when you’ll see one another next. If possible, create a specific plan rather than ending with a vague “soon.”
Knowing when you’re going home can make the distance feel more manageable for everyone.
Don’t Compare Your Holiday to Someone Else’s
Someone else’s assignment holiday may look incredible online.
They’re in a beautiful destination.
Their coworkers threw a huge celebration.
Their temporary apartment looks professionally decorated.
Their family flew in.
Meanwhile, you worked, ate leftovers, called home, and went to bed.
That’s okay.
A meaningful holiday doesn’t have to be photogenic.
Sometimes getting through your first one away is enough.
You don’t need to manufacture a magical experience simply because you’re somewhere new.
Do what feels good to you.
If the Day Is Hard, Let It Be Hard
You can follow every suggestion in this article and still have a difficult day.
You may cry after calling home.
You may wish you’d taken a different assignment.
You may feel lonely even while surrounded by coworkers.
You may decide that you never want to spend another holiday away.
That’s useful information.
Travel healthcare teaches you about your professional preferences, but it also teaches you about your personal ones.
Maybe next year you’ll prioritize being home for the holidays.
Maybe you’ll choose an assignment within driving distance.
Maybe you’ll take several weeks off.
Or maybe you’ll discover that you actually enjoyed creating your own celebration and would do it again.
You don’t have to decide any of that today.
Just let this holiday be what it is.
Your First Holidays Away From Home on Assignment Becomes Part of the Story
Someday, you may look back and remember this holiday differently than you experienced it.
You’ll remember the coworker who brought you a plate because they knew you were away from home.
You’ll remember the video call where your family balanced the phone in a ridiculous place so you could see everyone.
You’ll remember the tiny tree in your furnished apartment.
You’ll remember the group of travelers who decided to celebrate together because none of you knew anyone else in town.
You may even remember the shift.
Healthcare doesn’t stop because it’s a holiday, and being there for people during important or difficult moments is part of the work.
Your first holiday away may not look like the holidays you grew up with.
It doesn’t have to.
Home can be the place you miss.
It can also be the people you call, the traditions you carry, and the community you build wherever this assignment happens to take you.
Find an Assignment That Fits Your Season
The right travel healthcare assignment looks different for everyone, especially when holidays, family, location, and scheduling are part of the decision.
Explore travel healthcare opportunities on the TotalMed Board and look for an assignment that fits where you want to be next.
