Seasonal Nostalgia and Personality: Oh, What Fun It Is to…Reminisce?

Do you ever get nostalgic during the holiday season? If so, you’re not alone.

For me, it all starts when my friends and family post pictures of the fall colors on social media. I get a feeling that’s pleasant and sweet yet oddly painful. Then come the photos of Halloween costumes and the first snowfall, followed by Thanksgiving feasts and, eventually, all the quintessential pictures of Christmas trees and beautiful holiday scenes. By the peak of the holiday season, this poignant feeling is pretty constant.

My children humor me when I share with them what are, for me, intensely nostalgia-inducing images. They vaguely recognize the smiling faces from our few trips back to the United States. The different holiday traditions that these pictures capture, however, are more of a curiosity – almost as if they were screenshots from a movie.

I’m raising my children in a different country, climate, and language than those that I grew up with. Generally, I’m okay with the fact that they find little to relate to culturally when I share the traditions of where I’m originally from. But there’s something about the holidays and the nostalgia that the season provokes that really makes me feel the distance between me, my family, and my roots.

The Holidays and Holding On to the Past

I’m just one of the countless people around the world who are living in a country other than the one where we were born. Many of us carry memories of our friends and family, our homes, and the holiday traditions that have been left behind.

But you don’t have to be an immigrant, refugee, or expat living far from home to feel this sentimental pull of the past. Nostalgia can impact anyone living anywhere, regardless of their personality type, especially around this time of year.

Social gatherings, special foods, seasonal music, and family traditions, together with cultural customs and religious or spiritual ceremonies, define the holiday season for many people. During this time, family connections and friendships are reaffirmed. But while people are trying to enjoy the present and make new memories, everything about the season seems to provoke a collective reminiscence about the past.

This makes the holidays fertile ground for nostalgia.

Is Holiday Nostalgia Bad?

Nostalgia can be thought of as the present-tense emotional reaction to memories of the positive emotions associated with important social experiences of our past. For me, this often feels like deep appreciation mixed with a sense of loss. It’s pretty bittersweet.

As an Advocate (INFJ) personality type, I am intentional about creating new family traditions. But it still makes me feel kind of sad that my kids will never know certain holiday customs that I miss and hold dear. In the here and now, I love the friends and community that welcome us into their homes for special holiday meals and traditions, but I still long for the intimate closeness that I feel in the company of my mother, siblings, and extended family. All of these feelings simmer into a sense of lingering nostalgia that I (like so many others) experience throughout the entire holiday season.

But are these emotions bad?

Not exactly. It turns out that nostalgia is a mostly positive emotion.

Recent research has shown that revisiting emotional memories can trigger a positive process of personal reflection for people of all personality types. This can lead to a more profound sense of connection and belonging with both ourselves and the different social groups that have shaped our lives. It can also increase our appreciation for everything that we’ve lived through that has brought us to our present selves. Experiencing nostalgia can reaffirm our sense of identity and contribute to a greater sense of stability during life transitions.

But what about the “bitter” in bittersweet? It can’t all be good, can it?

Nostalgia does have the potential to be problematic. Have you ever detached yourself from the ongoing present moment, taking it in as if it were already a memory? This is called “anticipatory nostalgia,” and it can result in a normally happy experience becoming a sad one instead. Pondering the past can also lead some people to dwell on their regrets, opening the door to a more negative type of self-reflection.

It’s important to be aware of how you experience nostalgia and the reflection that it inspires. It’s a nuanced emotion and can evoke both positive and difficult feelings.

Check out our article “The Balancing Act of Self-Reflection: How Looking Forward and Backward Can Empower Each Personality Role” for a deep dive into the topic of self-reflection.

What Does Personality Have to Do with Holiday Nostalgia?

According to our “Sentimentality and Nostalgia” survey, an average of around 80% of people across all personality types confirm that they often feel nostalgic. But for some, nostalgia manifests more readily than it does for others.

Around 90% of Feeling personalities say that they often feel sentimental about the past and that those feelings make their memories more meaningful. Thinking types are hardly immune to this emotion, however. Just over 62% of them agree that they, too, regularly experience nostalgia. It just happens less frequently (and likely with less emotional intensity) than it does for Feeling types.

The difference between Turbulent and Assertive personalities is nearly as notable. More than 85% of Turbulent individuals report that they regularly experience nostalgia, compared to just over 60% of respondents with the Assertive trait. This likely has to do with the Turbulent tendency to react to situations through an emotional filter. Turbulent personality types are also constantly evaluating themselves and their place in the world, making them more prone to self-reflection and, naturally, nostalgia.

But if you set aside the influence of the Turbulent and Assertive traits, Feeling personality types tend to be the most susceptible to this emotion. And it makes sense in the context of who they are. For many Feeling types, experiencing sadness helps them appreciate their current happiness even more. They also highly value social connection and belonging, which strongly impacts how they feel about themselves and their sense of meaning and purpose in life.

It’s also fascinating that the Feeling trait is a good indicator of just how into the holiday season and memory-making a person might be. Feeling personalities are significantly more likely than their Thinking counterparts to say that they decorate (possibly even going a little overboard), make those special holiday recipes, and enjoy the seasonal activities and games that make up family traditions.

It’s no wonder that a whole season dedicated to tradition, bonding, and making memories can really get these personality types in the feels.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

If you’re feeling nostalgic this holiday season, you are not alone. Whether you’re far from home, like I am, or living in the same house that you grew up in, nostalgia is real. It can be painful, but it can also be reaffirming. And for us Feeling or Turbulent personality types, this tendency toward nostalgia can also be deeply woven into the fabric of who we are.

For everybody out there who feels all sentimental and nostalgic around the holidays, regardless of your particular traits, I encourage you to lean into those feelings, even if they might make you feel more vulnerable than you’d like to admit. Take advantage of the chance to reassess and appreciate who you are, the relationships and experiences that have shaped you, and how far you’ve come in life.

The nostalgia of the holiday season provides us with an opportunity to reconnect with ourselves and to be more intentional in the ways that we connect with others. It’s also a good reminder to focus on the present – because, one day, this year’s holiday season will be just a memory, so you might as well make it a good one.

The Holidays and Holding On to the Past

Is Holiday Nostalgia Bad?

What Does Personality Have to Do with Holiday Nostalgia?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Further Reading