But what if you’re spending Christmas alone?
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…there’ll be much mistltoeing and hearts will be glowing, when loved ones are near.”
These words to the popular Christmas song by Andy Williams paint a picture of candlelight, a beautifully decorated home and smiling faces around the table as the turkey is carved and served with love. That’s after gifts have been opened around the Christmas tree with all the family gathered together. We remember Christmases of our youth and we try to recapture the magic.
But what if you’re spending Christmas alone this year? What if you’ve been recently divorced or separated and your children are spending the day with your ex? What if there’s been the sadness of a death in your family and you’re still grieving? There are many reasons why you could be alone, but there you are, and Christmas is coming. How will you deal with it?
I have a friend who, when she realized she would be alone at Christmas, decided to call the holidays her ‘sacred solitude’ and to make it about reading, long baths, pyjamas and peace. She thought it would be a great time to honour her fears of being alone on a major holiday and use it to restore herself and revisit the essence of the season. Now there’s a different perspective. How about spending time being grateful for all you have been, honouring all that you are and dreaming of what you would like to become? It’s so rare to shut out all the noises and expectations that play in your mind at Christmas. If you can do this, you just might receive some unexpected surprises and find yourself ready to greet the new year.
It’s a new way to think of Christmas - a way that serves you instead of drains you and makes you feel sad. Try watching some funny movies, drinking lots of your favourite beverage, journaling and taking long walks. And strive to stay away from the stories in your head that say, ‘supposed to be’ and ‘used to be’ and ‘should have been.’ Change the story to ‘I finally have a few days to myself to do nothing. Hooray!’ Of course, if this is your first Christmas alone, it can be terrifying. Somehow, we feel shame at spending a holiday alone, but there is no shame in it. It’s just circumstances.
In recent years, I have found Christmas draining and I usually get sick in January from the exhaustion. It’s because I’ve tried to re-create the Christmas of my children’s past, with the decorating, shopping, baking, wrapping, stocking filling and drives to the airport to bring everyone home. I don’t know why I felt I had to do everything alone; my family never put that expectation on me. I put it on myself. But I wanted to do everything I could do to have my family together and make it perfect. I often wondered how people managed to celebrate without family around. I’m about to find out.
And so, this Christmas for the first time in my life, it will just be my husband and me. I won’t be completely alone, but I will be more alone than I’ve ever been at Christmas before. We have a concert to attend, an invitation or two, and some volunteering at a local shelter, but mostly it will be just the two of us. As a departure from tradition, we’ve decided to have steak and lobster for Christmas dinner instead of turkey, and then we will light a fire in the fireplace. We’ll enjoy the fire and the Christmas decorations over a glass of wine and a couple of treats. And then maybe we’ll go for a walk in the neighborhood to see the lights.
In the words of Leonard Cohen, “May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.”
A native of Newfoundland, Christine Faour is now ensconced in Coldbrook. After a lifetime spent teaching, she now spends her time knitting, tending her lavender hobby farm and writing about her take on life at anourishedlife.ca. She has written one book, Eat Where You Are, a memoir in recipes.