While many people will be gathering with family and friends this holiday season to eat, drink, and be merry, others may not have anyone with whom to celebrate the festivities. Here are some tips for how to handle the holidays alone:

Just remember, a turkey dinner is a turkey dinner regardless of whether or not it’s deli-sliced and consumed directly from the packaging.

Attending a holiday event for singles is a great way to remind yourself of the inability to connect with other human beings that landed you in this situation in the first place.

Place several mirrors facing each other around your apartment so that it looks like there are actually an infinite number of people in your home, rather than just you.

Keep in mind that Christmas is just a regular day, after all, no different than any of the other 364 days of the year during which you’re completely and totally alone.

Take comfort in the fact that you’re at least not suffocating anyone else with your terrible personality.

Avoid romanticizing what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone who truly understood who you were deep down, laughed at your jokes, held you every night, and placed your happiness above everything else in the entire universe.

Use this time to reflect on the past year and set goals for next year before realizing that you’ve ruined your life so thoroughly that there’s nothing that you can possibly change.

Take far too much comfort in every group text you receive wishing you a Merry Christmas.

Only berate yourself as much as your family would.