FROM OUR INBOX

Snippets from readers’ emails, Facebook and Twitter

✦ For many Christmas is a joyous time but for others it is lonesome – those who have lost loved ones or their children aren’t in the family nest any more. Three months after my mother’s death, I faced a Christmas alone. However, I decided it wasn’t going to be a sad one. Near my home there was a girl who earned her living selling the newspaper for the jobless and homeless and I was a regular buyer. She lived in a lodging house

and had no-one to celebrate with. On Christmas Eve I bought the paper and invited her to dinner at my place. Christmas Eve is celebrated in many parts of Spain with a family dinner, carol singing and games until dawn and this is what we did. We lost touch, but that Christmas Eve dinner helped to soothe my grief. Feeling lonely? Surely there’s someone in your neighbourhood who is alone, too. Vicky Pino, Madrid