That's what perusing social media feeds feels like over the holidays for someone with little or no family. Think about it: If one of your close friends just called things off with her fiancé, would she be the one you gloat to over happy hour drinks over ring shopping with your partner? Probably not. And though I'm sure nobody means to be malicious, it can feel hurtful. The holidays are tough enough when you don't have extended family, and social media creates an added layer of FOMO-induced sadness that can hover over you. Between Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas, I urge myself to deactivate Facebook, I delete Instagram from my phone, and I don't even dream about checking Snapchat unless I want a video montage of reminders that I'm missing out.on everything.įor people with families like mine, the excessive stream of family dinner photos that inundates my feeds during the holiday season just feels exhausting and insensitive.
But as an only child coming from an incredibly small family - just me and my dad - there's one more rule I have to add to my wintertime playbook with increasing urgency: Get off social media. Limit your candy intake to once a week (cough, day). Order gifts at least three weeks in advance if you cancelled your Amazon Prime account last year. The essential rules for holiday season survival should be evident by now: Avoid malls on the weekends, lest you want to risk getting crushed in a stampede.