Dear LPG,

I found this picture recently and it provoked a thought or two… 

Ever since I was young, Christmas has always been one of the major reasons that the short nights and cold days of winter were worth it.  Christian or not there is something really magical about the time of year when the decorations start to go up and thoughts turn to what to buy who for a present.

Everyone has their own highlight and there is something about the first twenty years or so of ‘pension hood’ when, if you must live through it on your own, there is a lot to do and people to see during the days, and early December brings with it the parties and preparation for the big day which keep many of us occupied.

For the past seven years, in addition to the Christmas holiday traditions of midnight mass, watching the Queen’s Speech, swapping presents, getting together with family and the dinner of the year; I have opted to help out at one of the many organised Christmas Dinner events that make Christmas an occasion for those who would otherwise spend it alone. 

Then there was last year when so many more people got a taster of a solitary Christmas day.  Despite all our relatives, we all needed to keep our distance, and many learned a whole lot more about what ‘Christmas alone’ really feels like because of the Pandemic, but I really thought it would be over by now. 

There were all sorts of restrictions last year but the promise of the jab left more people more optimistic about 2021’s celebration, but the latest variant will have scuppered the plans of many family festivities while the organised gatherings will not be again. 

My shared picture was taken in December 2019, and I took a regretful look at it last Christmas and, back then, I accepted that we would have to skip a year.  But here we are again with families making serious decisions as to whether they should go ahead with their plans and events like the one I would have volunteered at only to find them postponed for another year.

I know that we all live in hope of a more traditional Christmas by the time we get to 2022 and hope that all the would-be attendees of such events take a little comfort from my little pictorial memory.

AK, Sydenham.

(LPG blurred the picture a little so that no one can be recognised…)