There is a day of the year in which the most sincere desire is not a toast, a table or another round of greetings, but the sofa, silence and maybe non-judgmental pajamas. It’s December 26th, Boxing Day, the day many discover they have no desire to see anyone. The good news is that it’s not rudeness, it’s not asociality, it’s not “something wrong”: it’s normal, and even the studies say so.
Christmas is an emotional marathon disguised as a party. Even when everything is going well, even when we love the people we see, being together costs energy. Conversations, smiles, memories, family roles that reactivate like old apps open in the background. Boxing Day arrives when the adrenaline drops. And the body presents the bill. That’s when many people feel the need to retreat, be alone, turn down the volume on the world. Not out of sadness, but out of self-regulation.
According to research by the Value Penguin study center, 61% of people in the United States expect to feel loneliness or melancholy during the holidays, and almost one in four say they would skip Christmas events altogether if they could. Not because he doesn’t love others, but because social pressure weighs heavily.
The loneliness of the holidays is not new, but today we feel it more
Melancholic Christmas songs didn’t arise by chance. For decades they have been telling a less glossy side of the holidays: that of those who remain behind, of those who remember, of those who simply cannot stay in the imposed climate. The point, explain several mental health experts, is that cultural expectations do more harm than loneliness itself. The implicit message is clear: at Christmas you should be happy, surrounded, grateful. If you’re not, there’s something wrong.
Professor Bernard Richardson, psychologist and therapist, says it bluntly: loneliness is not a personal failure. It’s a feeling, not a condemnation. You can be alone and feel good. And you can be among everyone and feel profoundly disconnected.
Full social networks, empty batteries: the paradox of hyper-connected parties
Then there is another element that weighs more than we admit: social media. During the holidays they become a continuous showcase of perfect families, endless tables, synchronized laughter. Even those who normally cope well can feel a subtle emotional tiredness at the end of December.
Psychiatrist Danielle Hairston, who has been studying the topic of post-pandemic loneliness for years, talks about a profound change in the way we relate: more contacts, but fewer authentic connections. It is no coincidence that one in three adults says they feel lonely at least once a week, and the most affected are young adults between 18 and 34 years old.
Boxing Day, in this sense, becomes a watershed: the moment in which the noise stops and we remain in contact with what we really feel.
Wanting to be alone doesn’t mean isolating yourself: the difference we often forget
There is an important distinction, which we rarely make: retreating is not always isolating. Taking a day without visits, without phone calls, without obligations, can be a form of treatment. The problem arises when withdrawal becomes a prolonged disappearance, not chosen but suffered.
Experts invite us not to blame ourselves for the need for silence, but also not to transform it into a total escape. Sometimes it doesn’t take much: a message to someone we haven’t heard from in a while, a conversation without a performance, a light presence. Not all families work the same way. Not all holidays have to be experienced “as they have always been done”. There are those who have started to change rituals, those who have chosen not to participate in everything, those who have learned to say no without endless explanations.
And no, it’s not selfishness. It’s emotional self-preservation. As Hairston reminds us, even rest needs space: a break is not useful if we fill it with other duties, other trips, other tensions disguised as tradition.
After all, if you don’t want to see anyone today, you’re listening to something healthy
The truth is simple and perhaps a little uncomfortable: Boxing Day is not made to shine, but to slow down. To make space, to be a little more silent, even with ourselves. If today you feel the need not to answer, not to go out, not to explain, you are not wrong. You’re doing what a lot of people do, even if they don’t say it in their Instagram stories.
And sometimes, the most balanced gesture is not to add another meeting, but to remove noise.
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