Home Alone Was Right: Why Solitude Is the New Luxury Holiday

There is a line in Home Alone that lands differently as an adult. Amid the chaos of his family, Kevin says that when he grows up, he wants to live alone. As a kid, it sounds like rebellion. As an adult, especially around the holidays, it sounds like relief. The house is loud. Everyone is rushing. Every feeling has an audience. In that moment, wanting to be alone has nothing to do with loneliness.

I went into Thanksgiving assuming I would need an agenda to justify being away. Museums to visit. Walks to take. Landmarks to see. A loose itinerary so the time would feel earned. That instinct runs deep, especially for people who live in cities and are used to proving that their time is well spent. But once I arrived, the need for a plan dissolved. What replaced it was relief. No flights. No emotional choreography. No negotiating expectations. No explaining why I was or was not where someone thought I should be.

Spending Thanksgiving alone is still framed as a failure or a fallback, especially if you are queer and especially if you are a woman. The script says that if you are not with your family of origin, you should be surrounded by a chosen one. Connection is supposed to be visible, documented, and reciprocal in theory, even when it rarely is in practice.

Over time, relationships and communities change, sometimes quietly, sometimes all at once. What once felt central begins to loosen at the edges. You start noticing patterns. You pay attention to where your energy goes and what it costs to keep things intact. Eventually the question stops being who is at fault and becomes how much of yourself you are willing to give to any one place, belief, identity, or organization. Somewhere along the way, I moved into a quieter chapter. Less participant, more observer. A fly on the wall watching people, spaces, and time move past without needing to insert myself into all of it.

There has also been a pattern in my life that became harder to ignore. I have often been a very good friend to people, and that is why they are around me. I cannot always say the same in return. People reappear later, missing the way I showed up for them, missing the care, the consistency, the labor. Rarely is there mention of how they might show up for me. Only the assumption that I will remain available. Over time, that kind of one sidedness stops feeling like intimacy and starts to feel like erasure. That dehumanization wears you down.

Everyone says they want a village. Very few people want to be a villager. People want you present for their milestones, their crises, their celebrations. They want proximity without responsibility. This becomes especially visible when your life begins to shift. Upward mobility makes people uncomfortable. It threatens the quiet hierarchies they rely on to feel secure. Your growth becomes something to minimize or resent unless it benefits them directly. It is not that people do not want community. It is that they do not want their place in it to change.

I am often called Rose in the City, but I do not need to be in San Francisco to earn that name. Cities recognize you when you know how to look at them. I am Rose in any city. In your city.

The idea of a luxurious holiday, one where I did not have to shop, cook, clean, pack, travel, rush, or serve anyone, felt almost radical. Not greedy. Not selfish. Just unfamiliar. Bell Hooks writes about how women redefine love in midlife, how it shifts away from obligation and self erasure and back toward the self. The thought that a woman of color approaching middle age might be the one being catered to, served, waited on, without apology, felt like the opposite of everything I had been taught to expect. So many people lean on me. Count on me. Rely on me. Being irresponsible is not even an option. The notion of disappearing for a few days, of being somewhere no one could find me or need anything from me, felt quietly revolutionary.

That is how I ended up in downtown San Jose at the Signia by Hilton, a grand downtown building that once carried the Fairmont name. It has the scale and formality of a hotel built for conventions and civic life, the kind of property that knows how to hold a city’s big moments. But what surprised me was how current it feels now. Many luxury hotels leave me cold. The old-world guard look, heavy florals, tassels, brocade, overstuffed seriousness, it can feel like you are living inside someone else’s taste. This renovation moved in a different direction. Modern, but not sterile. Glamorous, but not fussy. It reminded me of a Kelly Wearstler sensibility, chic and cosmopolitan with enough warmth to make you want to linger. Decorated for the holidays, it was even more striking, the kind of interior that makes you slow down just to take it in.

Directly across the street, Plaza de César Chávez Park transforms each winter into a temporary holiday landscape. It is not permanent infrastructure, but a seasonal pop-up that takes over the park for a few weeks and then disappears. Hundreds of Christmas trees line the paths, each decorated by a different community organization. Schools. Nonprofits. Retirement homes. Motorcycle clubs. Sports groups. Utilities. There is an entire section of commemorative trees honoring people who have died, a quiet pocket that changes the tone of the walk and slows you down. Wooden village structures and layered lighting give the whole installation a theatrical, almost Swiss or German feel.

Coming from San Francisco, I was struck by how much of it was left intact. The trees. The structures. The memorials. Nothing locked down. Nothing stripped for parts. It made visible how rare it is to move through a public space that does not require constant vigilance.

Moving through a space like that makes you aware of how rarely ease is built into daily life. How often the default posture is alertness, preparation, readiness for interruption. The ability to enter and exit without consequence, without explanation, starts to feel like its own form of shelter.

What stayed with me was how easy it was to step into that atmosphere and then step right back out. If Home Alone is about surviving chaos, Home Alone 2 is about realizing you can choose something else entirely. At one point, Kevin says that if he had his own money, he would go on his own vacation, alone, and have the most fun of his life. Watching it this year, that line no longer felt exaggerated or funny. It felt practical.

Speaking of Home Alone, that movie happened to be playing on the television during my stay. The remote took a minute to figure out, but once it did, the selection was genuinely good. Christmas movies ran throughout the day, and I loved that there was always something on that I actually wanted to watch.

The hotel itself worked as containment. High ceilings. A genuinely comfortable bed. The kind of bed that makes you understand Kevin’s amazement when he looks around the Plaza Hotel room and says, “Wow, a huge bed just for me.” That was exactly how it felt. A place meant for staying in, not just sleeping between plans. I thought I would be out exploring, but because the property sits right in downtown San Jose, I could step out briefly, grab snacks, and return without turning it into an errand. A room service fruit plate was so generous I could pick at it over a few days. Nuts, cheese, and crackers made it even easier. Once everything I needed was nearby, the pressure to make the stay productive disappeared.

Having my dog with me changed everything. In the past, one of the biggest barriers to a holiday escape was the added cost and chore of being away from her, and the guilt of leaving her behind. Here, I did not have to trade rest for worry. The hotel did not just tolerate her, it welcomed her. They set the room up thoughtfully, including a dog bed she loved so much she dove onto it the second she realized it was hers. Watching her enjoy the room, the quiet, the routine, made the whole experience feel complete instead of compromised.

Being on the same level as the rooftop pool made the layout especially easy for a small dog owner. It is one of the only straight room-to-pool rooftop situations I have seen in the Bay. Each room had a private fire pit, and the hotel provided a marshmallow roasting kit. In the mornings, we could sit outside with coffee, sunlight on the water, the pool nearby, and nothing on the schedule. The rooftop itself felt like a true destination, not a token amenity. A clubhouse space was under renovation, and even mid-update it was obvious what it is meant to be. In summer, that roof is going to have its own life. It reads like a venue. The kind of space that could support a DJ residency or rooftop pool parties without needing to force it.

Sitting outside in the evening, fire going, a movie on inside, reminded me of Kevin settling into the hotel room and taking it all in.

One of the most striking parts of the stay was the service. Not in any singular moment, but in its consistency. Every interaction felt calm, competent, and unforced. No hovering. No friction. There is a particular kind of hospitality that is naturally gracious and talkative without being intrusive or awkward, and it is rare to find it throughout an entire building. Front desk, door, staff moving through shared spaces, everyone seemed inclined toward ease. It made me understand the appeal of buildings with doormen, not as a status flex, but as infrastructure. Someone else quietly holding the edges of the day. And yes, it reminded me how long it has been since anyone helped me with bags. You get used to carrying everything yourself until you do not have to.

The night before Thanksgiving, a friend who lives locally met me at the hotel. We had dinner at AJI Bar & Robata, the Japanese-Peruvian spot in the Circle Bar area, and the room itself set the tone before the first plate hit the table. Chic without being loud, vibey in a way that felt intentional. It was worth asking which rolls are raw, because it is a fusion menu and a few land cooked when you might assume otherwise. We lingered. We watched the elaborate, fragrant, smoke-filled signature cocktails being carried past us to other tables. And the tuna tartare on a tempura shiso leaf was dangerously easy to keep eating.

Thanksgiving itself was quieter. Some people crave the food of their family homes during the holidays. I understand that impulse, even if it is not mine. The buffet offerings were far more in line with my palate. Fountain Restaurant’s spread had the feeling of a holiday table multiplied, but with sharper edges and better sourcing: farmer’s market salads, grilled vegetables, and a deep artisan cheese and charcuterie selection, a chilled seafood bar with jumbo shrimp, crab claws, and oysters on the half shell, assorted sushi and sashimi, and a butcher block that covered the classics and then some. California citrus-brined roasted turkey with chorizo cornbread stuffing. Slow-cooked bone-in prime rib with Yorkshire pudding. Maple glazed pork loin with roasted kabocha pumpkin. Crab-stuffed salmon with a herb-forward sauce. Soups and sides that read like a full season rather than an afterthought, plus breakfast stations, pasta, and the kind of dessert table that makes you wander back for one more look. It was the kind of meal where you are spoiled for choice and do not have to do any shopping, prepping, cleaning, or cooking. I have done enough of that in my life. And it was dangerously easy to keep eating, because nothing felt careless or overdone.

I even made my dog her own little holiday plate. Turkey. Bits of beef. Cubes of cheese. A small scoop of mashed potatoes. She loved it. Those small, intentional moments became the holiday.

It also made me pay attention to downtown San Jose as a cultural corridor, not just a convenient location. The rink next to the hotel has been hosting queer programming, including a drag-on-ice style night featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race star Denali. And with Super Bowl LX coming to Levi’s Stadium on February 8, 2026, downtown San Jose is already lining up large-scale outdoor events that will pull the region south. A Kehlani block party outside San Jose City Hall is on the calendar for February 6, and Dom Dolla is scheduled for a street party outside City Hall on February 7. Signia sits right in the middle of that gravity, across from the park, close to City Hall, and walking distance to the kind of public-space programming that becomes a city’s calling card when it works. Something tells me getting to know downtown San Jose early is the move. With its proximity to Silicon Valley, it has the ingredients to become an up-and-coming cultural hub if the city can keep getting that artist, promoter, civic combination right.

Home Alone ends with reunion. That is not the part that stays with me. The part that lingers is the middle. The quiet. The realization that you can take care of yourself, that you can choose comfort, that opting out can be an act of clarity rather than failure.

More people are starting to recognize this. Solitary luxury is emerging as the next version of the holiday. Not crowded airports. Not obligation. Not stress. Just space. Good food. A comfortable bed. Room service. Movies. Sunlight. A sense of being held by a place designed to make things easy. Despite the building’s history, it was the renovation that pulled me in and made me want to return. I was not trading one thing for another. I was not compromising. I had everything.

By the end of the weekend, I realized something else. Each staff member I met felt like family. A functional one. A place where people are glad to see you. Where things work. Where care is mutual and uncomplicated. I guess I was not home alone after all.

All images in this articles taken by Chloe Catajan.