Anyone else spending Christmas alone this year?

[MelindaMoose]

Is anyone else spending Christmas alone?

Not this year but I have done many times. I’ve also worked on the day.
what are you planning on doing?

I’m planning a quiet Christmas at home with no cooking, visiting, presents, receiving visitors or watching TV unless there’s something I want to watch. Different family members started talking about their plans in July and I thought about going away for the week to avoid the endless discussions, but the thought of airport queues doesn’t appeal.

Do you not get on with family?

Not really. I don’t want to describe it because it’s too outing but I’ve spent the last five Christmases alone and I find it peaceful. It’s just one day.

It can be really lovely and uplifting to spend it alone, in my case far better than seeing family.

even now it’s only myself, DP and DC (adult who normally works Christmas Day) and we just relax at home. We are estranged. Due to that fact to avoid everything over the years I’ve learnt I call my parents on my terms and apart from that the phones are switched off.

I used to like to pick some different bits of food like a baked potato as my main with lots of sides through the day, get myself a new book and a jigsaw. That sort of thing.

If they try to involve you in the conversation just say you are spending it by yourself as that’s what you like.

This will be my 5th one solo. I’m single, no kids, no parents, no siblings any more and very little family. I just can’t do it any more - I miss my nuclear family and our old Christmases, and find it harder and harder to mask. So I tell A I’m at B’s, tell B I’m at C’s (they don’t know each other) and have a nice quiet day to myself. I’ll do a jigsaw, have books, nice food, and although I find the Xmas period a battle to get through, the cloud lifts on NYD and it’s not long before I’m watching out for the early bulbs poking through.

Oh right so you’re a veteran!

I am a massive introvert and a friend and I each lied to all our friends and family one year, telling everyone we were spending Christmas Day together so they wouldn’t keep pressing us to go to theirs.

We each got to spend a lovely day at home alone in our pyjamas eating chocolate and drinking wine, with full possession of the tv remote!

I dread it from now until January. The tv adverts don’t help.

I am yes.

Glad to hear you're making the best of it. Have you considered volunteering on Xmas day?
X

Before I met my partner I spent five Christmases alone as my family have passed away. One year a friend invited me to join her family but it turned out to be a pity invite and it all ended up being very awkward. I was sorry I had accepted the invitation!

@PauliesWalnuts I have did the same and spent about 4 of the last 7 Christmases solo . At first I told a few friends I was spending it alone because they had asked outright, but then I stopped telling people that as I realised they just wanted to know to satisfy their own curiosity.

I have one very old and dearly loved male friend who asks because he usually invites me to spend it with him and his wife and kids. But other than that I just lie to people.

Last year was wild. I ended up going abroad and then fell very ill a few days after getting off the plane so I spent Christmas in a foreign hospital and wasn’t discharged until NYE and wasn’t allowed to fly home until the end of January. I used to dread it but after last years horror show, I feel if i am not in hospital this year it’ll be a win 🏆

I find it interesting that some people seem to be equating spending Christmas with their immediate family at home as “alone”.

To me alone = just you alone by yourself!

I'm in my own every other one, when DD is at her dad's. First time I hated it, but it's been like that for 16 years so it's very normal now and I enjoy it. I drink champagne and eat cheese , I always do vol au vents because my mum always made them at Christmas. As someone said, it's just one day, I'm not lonely and I just please myself.

I was just coming on to start the same post!

I’m on my own this year and really looking forward to it. I’ve already started planning what food and drink I want and might even treat myself to a present!

It'll be my first one totally single for 32 years but my adult DS does still live at home so not strictly alone. I'm actually looking forward to having a tension free Christmas day and then in the evening we are going over to family for food and games. I'll probably get up nice and early to walk the dog and then enjoy a delicious breakfast.

i wouldn’t regard this as alone personally

Yes, it’s constant. I feel like I’ve done all the Christmas markets and Christmas fairs, I don’t need any more decorations and it’s become very commercialised. I enjoyed Christmas when DD was young, but I miss the days when it was only thought about from early December.

I have done a couple of times, I don't mind it, it's usually other people who mind if they ask what you're doing Christmas Day, they're appalled on your behalf that you are by yourself. 🙄

Thanks but I'm looking forward to spending the day eating lovely food, most of a box of Mon Cheri liqueur chocolates and wading through a bottle of Cremant.

I'll be fine 🥂

Sorry to hear that that sounds awful. I hope you are better now.

if you may have meant me nowadays its just the three of us as family are estranged. So no that’s not alone.

but I have had a lot of Christmases alone prior to this. One decades ago was dreadful as I was alone Christmas Eve through to January and saw absolutely no one. Another one I thought I was seeing my DC but they left Christmas Eve to go back to uni so I was alone with food and plans for two.

I spend most of my life alone normally as my partner works away half of every month, I have no family anymore and no friends where i live. But any special occasion time can make it that much harder.

i am fine if I know I am going to be alone as I make plans of things I want to do and hobbies but if it’s if you don’t know and things get cancelled.

Me too, a week before and a week after only. I can cope then. I put my decorations up late but most of my street put them up in November before thanksgiving…
I’m in England so very strange.

oh another year DC was supposed to be at home but instead stayed with a girlfriends family so I didn’t see DC until the new year.

thinking about it it’s not surprising I don’t like Christmas and can’t be bothered with it.

How on earth is spending it with your child and family spending it alone? Alone means only you all day, no one else.

I have thought about it, but I am a civil servant and work up to Cmas Eve (and it’s very busy) so that the ones in my small team who have kids can take Cmas hols off. I don’t mind that and it stops me getting maudlin. After I finish I am mentally exhausted though, and really welcome a break. I do volunteer in a community garden CIC through the year though.

Like others I really try to avoid TV in the run up, and my “family that aren’t family” do a £50 secret Santa so I thankfully don’t have to buy presents for everyone. Ironically, I’m a bad catholic (pro-choice, peo-divorce, pro- contraception etc) but do believe in God, regularly go to church, and like to go to midnight Mass - I do still celebrate the original meaning of Christmas. I just struggle with all the pressure to spend it with people as I feel very much like a spare part, even though my friends are well-meaning.

One of my friends is dragging me out for a fell run of all things on NYE morning ☺️ and then I’ll come home, give the house a good clean and tidy, have a nice tea, early night, and by 1 Jan I feel so much more positive!