Quotes & Sayings About Holidays Without Family

President Obama and his family are spending the holidays in Hawaii, and while they're gone, they got a fence jumper to house sit. Tomorrow, he will be in Hawaii playing golf with Raul Castro and the Pope. — David Letterman

Halloween was the best holiday, in my opinion, because it was all about friends, monsters, and candy, rather than family and responsibility. — Margee Kerr

We have a family holiday once a year, usually abroad, but that's it. I feel I should have holidays for my family's sake, but I'm not that adventurous. — Robert Webb

I think for Thanksgiving particularly I've always, one of the fun things for me about doing a big dinner is having friends and family so we've always done that, and even through our other holidays like having a mix of friends and family, and if you don't have your family nearby, or it's tough for you, find a friend and go and eat with them. — Kate Walsh

My family background is Mexican, and I was born in Chicago. It's pretty much family tradition every time we get together for Christmas and major holidays to sing. Our family time is centered around the food and a little bit of performing for one another. — Ailyn Perez

If somebody doesn't want to cook at home or has more family members than they have room for, then it's great to be in a city that's got restaurants that are actually busy on the holidays. — Danny Meyer

I used to spend my holidays there in my grandparents' large family house, with my numerous cousins. When I die, I am going to be buried in the village cemetery. — Yves Chauvin

As a comedian, especially one that works as much as I do, there is a lot of sacrifice. People don't see that I'm away from my family 46 weeks out of the year. I miss all the birthdays and anniversaries and holidays. — Gabriel Iglesias

Happy Holidays

Is it not this day to smile?
Is it yet a time to give?
Is this friend as old as good?
Is my family so well?

Santa is just on his way,
Bringing gifts and love tonight,
Have a prosperous New Year!
And a happy day to last! — J.M.K. Walkow

The resource of generational history is accorded little attention our society, which seems ever more obsessed with making "new" and "better" synonymous. From my family I became aware of the importance of passing along wisdom from one generation to the next. Yet despite the increasing proliferation of digital recording and other communication technologies, we're passing on less knowledge today than our parents did through the oral tradition alone. We're drowning in photographs and videos, capturing every mundane moment of our birthdays, holidays, and vacations. Yet these can be no more than pleasant distraction, only scratching the surface of our real relationships. — Ralph Nader

Because isn't that what the holidays are all about - letting your family make you wish you were an orphan? — Shelly Laurenston

Don't count on me to take you in because I'm angry. I'm angry at you for leading us on such a song and dance all these years, not just these few years but all the years, skipping all those holidays and staying away from beach trips and missing Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary and their thirty-fifth and Jeannie's baby and not attending my wedding that time or even sending a card or calling to wish me well. But most of all Denny, most of all: I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us. — Anne Tyler

What good was a love affair that ended with the last train to the country, and Christmas presents that had to be given the day before Christmas because holidays were family times, and knowing that you would still be as alone as before because you could never telephone the man you loved when you needed him? — Rona Jaffe

I find that it's the simple things that remind you of family around the holidays. — Amy Adams

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.
I bet they'd be divorced by now if I hadn't been born. I'm sure I was a huge disappointment. I'm not pretty or smart or athletic. I'm just like them- an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can't believe we have to keep playacting till I graduate. It's a shame we just can't admit that we have failed at family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives. Merry Christmas. — Laurie Halse Anderson

My family and I are so close, it's important to have a close knit relationship and to make time to spend with each other, especially at the holidays. — Gia Coppola

Some places are like family. They annoy us to no end, especially during the holidays, but we keep coming back for more because we know, deep in our hearts, that our destinies are intertwined. — Eric Weiner

How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away. — Yuval Noah Harari

It was about having a box in the attic or basement or attic or garage, something we could return to over and over again, something that said, this is us, this is where we were last year, and this is where we'll stay, and this is where we'll pile on the memories, over and over again, until there are so many memories that it's blinding, the brightness of family, the way love and nurturing is like a color you can't name because it's so new. — Carrie Brownstein

At Christmas, tea is compulsory. Relatives are optional. — Robert Godden

Family holidays and weekends are really brightly colored memories, full of my mother and father, rather than our nannies and au pairs. — Olivia Williams

After that I went home and Sally put what was left of me to bed; next day, being a Christian family, we saluted the happy morn with the Hell and Hades of a row because I wouldn't get up and go to early service, my sister being quite determined that even if I didn't get up. I shouldn't sleep. — Dion Fortune

Unless you are rich, and can con vales center in a sanatorium estate (where visitors came down a tiered, oceanside lawn to found you ato your easel) you have to keep going when you're depressed. That means phone calls, appointments errands, holidays, family, friends, and colleagues. — Virginia Heffernan

You're shopping, you're cooking, you're getting together with family, you're eating food that's bad for you, you're eating more food that's bad for you, and of course you're eating food that's bad for you. Holidays are also an opportunity for — Jim Gaffigan

I've been asked by lots of people, "What happens if you do kill yourself?" They want to know about what it would be like for other people around you, like the person who would find your body, the other kids at school, whoever would have to clean up the blood, what your family holidays would be like. — Albert Borris

I have a son who's been raised Jewish because his mom is Jewish. I have a whole different set of holidays to celebrate. Everybody is thrown together with their family in such an intense way, opening all of that stuff again. You're cooped up with everybody and forced to exist with them, and you're forced to try to relate to them in this way that's more open. I guess that just doesn't work for a lot of people. — Paul Giamatti

I do want to have holidays and see my family and friends. — Jason Clarke

My family is certainly very vocal. They're very Italian. A lot of our holidays end with people screaming at each other across the room. And everyone's very opinionated and intelligent. A lot of my aunts and uncles are wildly educated, and their opinions reflect that. We're all very liberal. — Chris Evans

Grief is not a one-time thing for people with chronic health problems. Just like people grieving the loss of a loved one find the sadness washes over them at holidays or family events or even unexpected everyday moments, we who are grieving the loss of ourselves, or our former lives, will find the feelings come at random - when someone mentions an activity we used to love, or even something as simple as spilling a glass of milk, or not being able to find our keys. It doesn't mean you're a failure. It means you're human. And it's okay. Then — Kimberly Rae

And I couldn't take my eyes off Pete. He ate dinner like he always did, in three or four huge, whoofing bites, before heading back out front to his cone of warmth, his coffee, his cigarettes, and ghostly tunes piping from his little transistor radio. And most important, to whatever thoughts drowned out the voices of his own family saying "hello" and "happy holidays."
I watched him because I couldn't believe that could be anyone's comfortable horizon. A tiny porch on a dark corner near a highway. We lucked out living on a planet made thrilling by billions of years of chance, catastrophe, miracles, and disaster, and he'd rejected it. You're offered the world every morning when you open your eyes. I was beginning to see Pete as a representative of all the people who shut that out, through cynicism, religion, fear, greed, or ritual. — Patton Oswalt

Family planning experts are now recommending giving men vasectomy gift cards for the holidays. Talk about taking the jingle out of the bells. — Jay Leno

I always wanted to try the Turkish Delight in Narnia. When I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a boy, I used to think that Turkish Delight must be incredibly delicious if it made Edmund betray his family," A.J. says. "I guess I must have told my wife this, because one year Nic gets a box for me for the holidays. And it turned out to be this powdery, gummy candy. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed in my entire life. — Gabrielle Zevin