Missing friends and family

Heelllooo,
as you may know I do live in England for a year, that means I'm living away from my family and friends. This is of course extremly hard. Especially at this seasion of the year because every time I'm in town I can see all the festive decoration and this makes me, obviously, very sad that I can't spend this time of the year with my beloveds.
A lot of times I do lay in bed, thinking of my family and friends and missing them but what can you do against it?
Honestly, I havn't got any 'receipe' against it, I only can tell you what I try to do. So first of all I try to keep myself busy. Do a lot of things with the new people I met here and explore England. Keep myself busy with travelling. Beside of that I do try to keep in contact with my freinds. I do write with them on Facebook, Whatapp or wherever extremly often and I also do Skype with them as often as I can. I try to keep everybody updated in whats going on in my life and I also do want to know whats going on in their lifes. So I also do try to write them little postcards from the places I've visited and send them some little packages with typical english things in them, with things I do know they will be very happy about. And seeing them being happy about this little act of freindship makes me happy again.
Before I came here I also prepaired myself with a lot of pictures of them. I did a little photo album of my best friend and me with a lot of special memories we shared together. I also put a few pictures in frames which are now in my room and I have a standing photo album from my mum which shows my family. I alsways look at them when I'm in my room which let me forget a bit that they are so far away from me.
But I do know from friends here where I live now, that everybody has their own little rituals and little things which make them missing a bit easier. Some write letters with their friends and family, some do fly back home every holiday and even on the weekends some times, some arrange special times with their friends where they do the exact same thing at the exact same time and record that via skype, some film everything they do and send it to them, but nearly everybody always is sending voicemails. So do I. I think it's an amazing thing to hear the voices of your friends and family even during the day and then you don't have the feeling that they do live hunderts of kilometres away from you.

But in the end everybody has to find their own way of coping with the situation and finding the little tricks for theirselves of making the situation easier for them.

Lots of love,  
Jen ♥