"There's no place like home for the holidays," the song says — but returning to your childhood home to celebrate the season of giving isn't possible for everyone year after year. Whether you've made your own family and trimmed your own tree, live too far away to make it back or decided it would make you happier not to, celebrating (or merely marking) the holidays on your own for the first time marks a break from Christmases past.

So the editors of THINK would like to hear from you: What were the circumstances the first time you didn't go home for the holidays? Let us know in the survey below, and we'll round up the most interesting, heartfelt or upsetting memories for our readers before Santa's done checking his list the second time.