Navigating End-of-Year Plans as an Expat During the Global Crisis

Let me be honest – this year has thrown us all for a loop, hasn’t it? As I sit here in my apartment abroad, staring at my calendar and wondering what on earth the holidays will look like, I know I’m not alone. Every expat I’ve talked to lately is wrestling with the same impossible questions about end-of-year plans. The usual “should I fly home or stay put” dilemma has morphed into something far more complicated.

The Travel Dilemma

After weeks of going back and forth, I’ve made peace with staying put this year. The idea of boarding a plane, only to potentially get trapped in my home country while my life, job, and apartment wait for me here? No thank you. A friend of mine took that gamble in March – she’s still stuck at her parents’ house, eight months later. So instead, I’m embracing plan B: a rooftop gathering with my little expat crew, some mulled wine, and whatever fireworks we can see from up there. Not quite the family reunion I’d imagined, but hey, we’re making it work.

Adapting to Local Restrictions

The rules here change faster than I can keep up with them. Take Germany, where some of my friends are living – they’re allowed exactly 5 people from 2 households at gatherings. I spent an embarrassing amount of time with a pen and paper trying to help a friend figure out the logistics of that one. (Spoiler: someone’s definitely getting left out.) And now there’s talk of banning fireworks altogether? New Year’s Eve without fireworks feels like birthday cake without candles.

But you know what? These bizarre restrictions have pushed me to rethink everything. Last week’s “dinner party” of four felt more special than any packed house party I’ve been to. Who knew?

A Glimmer of Hope

Okay, I’ll admit it – the vaccine news has me doing little happy dances in my kitchen. When I read about those 90-95% effectiveness rates, I actually teared up a bit. Pfizer and BioNTech hitting 95% effectiveness, even for older folks at 94%? That’s the kind of news that makes me dare to dream about hugging my grandma again.

They’re saying we might see 50 million doses by the end of December, ramping up to over a billion by late 2021. My mathematician friend quickly reminded me that with seven billion humans on this planet, we shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet. But still – it’s progress, real progress, and I’ll take every ounce of hope I can get right now.

Planning Realistically for the Future

Late-night WhatsApp chats with fellow expats have become my unofficial support group, and we’ve collectively realized a few hard truths:

• Nobody really knows how long these vaccines will protect us
• Getting everyone to actually take the vaccine? That’s going to be its own adventure
• Two doses per person means double the logistics headache
• Storing and shipping these vaccines globally is like planning the world’s most complicated dinner party

So yeah, we might be having this same “small gatherings only” conversation next holiday season too. It stings to write that, but accepting it now feels better than being blindsided later. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Making the Best of It

Here’s where I’ve landed: I’m focusing on what’s actually in my control. No flights home, no big reunions, no pretending everything’s normal. Instead, I’m planning a cozy celebration with my chosen family here – you know, the friends who’ve become surrogate siblings through shared struggles with foreign bureaucracy and questionable local cuisine. My parents will join via video call, probably at some ungodly hour due to time zones, but we’ll make it special.

This whole experience has redefined what being an expat means to me. Sure, we signed up for cultural adaptation and language barriers, but global pandemic survival? That wasn’t in the brochure. Yet here we are, proving once again that expats are nothing if not adaptable. We’re swapping travel horror stories for creative celebration ideas, sharing confusing regulation updates in group chats, and somehow finding reasons to laugh through it all. Because if there’s one thing this community knows how to do, it’s roll with the punches – even when those punches come in the form of constantly changing holiday restrictions.