You might be spending Christmas alone this year… but you will not be ‘alone’!
24 Dec 2020
Dear LPG,
Please don’t think that I am trying to deliberately depress any reader at this late stage in the year. I would just like to take it upon myself to wish everyone who stumbles upon this webpage today a very Happy Christmas, even though I know that it won’t be happy for all the people included in the ‘everyone’ I referred to at the beginning of this sentence.
Most of us look forward to each December 25th while others approach it with a certain degree of dread, and of course there are many that see it as just another day. If this is your plan, it might be one of many Christmases you have spent alone or one that the Covid-19 restrictions is forcing on you this year.
I will be alone even though I have a lot of family. I suppose it is my fault because I have too many children and if all five households concerned, and the two grandchildren who have their own families get together in the usual way (in spite of the fact that ours is a very staggered Christmas because of visits to the in-laws), our get-together will result in a ‘temporary Christmas bubble’ which will surely pop right off the chart!
So, to avoid all my children’s little inter-sibling, pre-Christmas squabbles caused when the second lockdown was announced we decided to have an electronic Christmas with all the present opening done via video-chat. That’s the plan but just in case the whole country is thinking along similar lines and the internet can’t cope, I have been looking up ways to amuse myself if I really end up alone.
I might be alone, although I know that I will have relatively little to be sad about, if nothing else I can be sure of lots of phone calls. So, for me it will be by choice but I know that many will not have one; even the community Christmas gatherings are not likely to take place this year.
I took a look at what the internet suggested about getting through the day on your own and to my surprise, there were many suggestions designed for youngsters as well as us oldies, although as a Christian I found one thing missing. So, I would like to add wishing Jesus a Happy Birthday. All that aside, I hope that some of the ideas I found for planning a positive Christmas even if you spend it alone might help…
AN, Selhurst.
A few online suggestions
Some statistics…
What others have done; young and old …
