A bit homesick? How does it affect you and how do you handle it.
We have been here in Ontario for six months now. Got a great house, both got good jobs, kids settled in school and college. We have no complaints about our life at all.
BUT I am feeling a bit homesick. I look back at what I left behind and logically it makes no sense. OUr quality of life is much improved.BUT I am finding myself thinking of "home".
Is it just cos its Christmas do you think?
Anyone else feeling like this?

My wife is the same ( no job but happy keeping house ) and this is the first year for 15 years not spent with her parents. It is hard, and made more so by Christmas.

It's probably more habit than Christmas itself. It's a time of year when you have usually done the same thing and it feels odd not to be doing it this time.

Then again, you've probably done an awful lot of things in the last six months that you haven't done before. You seem pretty happy about them. Why not do something radically different for Christmas?

We have only been here just over a week, we got possession of our new home, but as yet it is empty, so we are staying with hubbies relatives.
I am finding it hard as things are so different, I would normally cook christmas dinner for a least 16 people, so I am feeling a bit supfurluous. Hopefully Sears will actually delivery on Saturday to we can move into our new home. :curse:
Teppermans delivered on time as promise, unfortunately the beds are coming from Sears.
It is also difficult to contact the UK while using other peoples computers and telephone.
Hopefully things will feel better come the weekend; plus the kids need so space. Dont lets us down again Sears (it should have come today!) Oh an Future shop still have to provide the TV; but on the upside, when good come from shipping we already have broadband. Apparently they are being held up y the SNOW! :curse:
Fingers crossed for Santa bring us our home.

That's quite natural. It gets better over time, but of course Christmas is the real test, in the first couple of years. I once went "home" for Christmas, and hated it! Bloody cold and even more commercialised than here. And people change.
Merry Christmas anyway

I wouldnt say that I am homesick but I do miss my mom and my best friend so can totally appreciate what you mean.

I have the added problem of having my in laws to stay for 3 weeks over xmas and have been so excited for their arrival since I arrived in Lethbridge in August. But over the last few weeks I have become very jealous of Phil as it is his parents and it SHOULD be mine (if my mom wasnt so frickin' pig headed) and then guilty of feeling this way

Cant bloomin' well win but I must admit over the last few days I have become more and more emotional too - think that it is realisation setting in after the first 5 months that never again will I spend Xmas in the UK

Gaynor
x

My parents won't be able to visit but OH will
as my Dad can't get insurance for travel, due to ilness, i know if i want to have christmas with them again i will have to come here and will poss do that after our first year in CA ( hopefully sometime soon ) its very hard at christmas even in the same country, we don't usually see the parents until a few days after when we have to go there. when the inevatable happens then maybe my Mum will come and stay for christmas but still not sure she will. maybe your mum may come round when she realises you are there to stay, why won't she come ? if you don't mind me asking

cheers and merry christmas sue

Christmas is about the only time I ever do feel a little bit homesick. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because Christmas is a time when we tend to repeat certain tasks and routines, maintaining specific personal/family traditions that are important to us. Even the smallest difference jars and reminds us of all the other things we left behind.

This will be our 4th Christmas in Canada and I occasionally miss even the silly stuff - like driving to Leicester really early on a Sunday morning to beat the crowds, browsing through the Radio Times and highlighting anything really good on the telly (sad aren't I), scoffing mince pies straight out of the box, on the way home from Asda, or filling the time on the long round trip to visit parents and in-laws by alternating between singing cheesy Christmas tunes at the top of our voices with complaining about why it was alway us that did the visiting - You know, just little habits and routines that often you don't even realise you did every year, until you don't do them anymore.

So although I now consider Canada my home and have no desire to move back to the UK, I think I'll always feel a bit homesick at this time of year.

Christmas Karma coming your way!

Nic

oh - i'm not alone with that???

well, i'm not sure how much of it IS christmas since we've never had much of christmas traditions in my small family back in europe... and i wouldn't call it homesick either... but it seems to be that time of the year that certain stuff suddenly gets a different touch. and:

i've been here more than two years now (last two christmas breaks i spent travelling western canada, first year the lower mainland, last year the rockies - so really exciting but not really christmassy which wasn't a problem at all.), became pr this september and the crate with my personal things arrived two weeks ago. so everything fell into place in a very short time and in a way that really feels like meant to be. it will be a matter of days until this place looks tidy again - and definitely feels like home (no missing stuff anymore because it is in storage in europe, somewhere on its way here - or just not unpacked yet...) - oh and i'm really looking forward to the christmas dinners i've been invited to.

but here i am, really really tired - or should i say worn out after all that stress about immigration / relocation and a very busy and demanding time in the shop? with a running nose (and fed up with my laptop all of a sudden deciding that it doesn't recognise my external hd - with all my music on it - anymore... ok, i'm glad that at least it finds the bios again and is able to start up and have most programs and the cd/dvd drive running, but...) and ask myself for the very first time since july 2005: what the h*** am i doing here???
weird feeling - as i said, i don't think in a homesick kind of way, although i'd like to have certain people a wee bit closer sometimes... - more like having reached this important goal and finally able to harvest the fruits of all these efforts. but nevertheless being kind of disoriented and looking for a new - different - challenge...


i hope you are able to make the best out of it and can enjoy the holiday season.
merry christmas!

I can identify with this to some degree. You spend so long trying to achieve the immigration goal, or to at least achieve a certain point along the way - once it arrives, you kind of think "OK, good. Now what" !

We have always been project people. Our first home was a delightful, distrastrous looking 'fixer-upper' project. Took us 7 years to turn it into a presentable home. So we sold that, and built a new house from scratch. Exciting, stressful as hell, and came out the other side with a great asset.
A very good friend of ours voiced her fears that our emigration was our next project. I disagreed with her - but recall the words clearly. Makes me think sometimes

Christmas may not necessarily be a big religious festival to many - but
a) it marks winter with a shout (depressing anyway to many, many people) b) it's the finalisation of another year
c) it marks the start of the next year (obviously!) and that may quietly be nagging at the back of your mind that you need to set out what the next achievement/goal should be.

This time of year makes you look back at the last one, contemplate a bit too much any of your 'failings', and in many ways gives you kick up the backside to do better in the next.

Chuck in a dose of good, proper homesickness - and boy - perhaps we should all take a 'duvet day'

Homesick? Nope, not in the slightest. I have a house, a good job, a wonderful OH and our health...I've always been one of those people who can put down roots pretty quickly - wherever I am I'm "home" - except when living in the in-law's spare bedroom or in my brother's guest room - where we spent last Christmas. Now that sucked!

Homesick....does sick of being at home and wishing you were in Canada count?

If so, count me in.

Homesick ..... I truly am not!

I am really looking forward and excited about Christmas this year, more than ever I think.

We have arranged to Skype to my family back in the UK on Christmas morning, then we can get down to the serious business of celebrating Christmas in Canada, "our home".

We have some (Canadian) friends coming round for drinks mid-day, and shall probably take a trip down to watch the skaters on Bowness Lagoon before coming home for a family Christmas dinner. The house is looking lovely, and there's an amazing pile of gifts under our tree!

Oh to be so smug.....

Well I'm sorry ..... I didn't mean to be smug. I'm just so happy to be here, and it really does feel like home to us now, so no I'm not homesick.

Are we only supposed to post here if we're having a group moan?