Friend: What do you mean you’re spending Christmas alone?
[Silence]You: No, you should come to ours.
Friend: Well, I actually just want to Netflix and binge on obscene amounts of chocolates and Christmas pudding for breakfast.
[Silence]Hands up who’s had that conversation? The Hollywood ideal of happy families, roaring fires and adoring glances is not the standard. The strangled silent screams, undercooked carrots and bloody turkey again is the reality. So one fact about me is that I am an only child and quite capable of self soothing. Also, for me, the run up to Christmas is more exciting than the actual day. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy Christmas and have some very happy memories of Christmases past as a child. However, family dynamics change etc and you find yourself solo or invited to friends. Now I have friends who I love like family but sometimes, all you want to do on Christmas day is stay in pyjamas all day, maybe have a little fizz for breakfast and eat pizza for dinner.
With the advent of social media, I find you’re never really solo: a few years ago I spent the day solo and my entire day was punctuated with about ten phone calls so that by the end of the day I hadn’t really felt like I was alone. Let us be honest you can feel lonely in a huge room of people. There is a difference between lonely vs alone.
Here are some top tips for spending Christmas day alone.
- Prepare your friends a good month in advance that you are giving yourself the gift of a solo Christmas. Using positive language means they will find it hard to argue with your choice.
- Make a list of everything you need for the day – eats and treats. I plan on having pizza or chicken cashew dish by the Pioneer Woman.
- Lay the table the night before – alone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat yourself.
- I am buying myself some pyjamas for my Christmas day outfit.
- Get your streaming list sorted so you are not wasting precious minutes flicking through Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC Iplayer. Better yet – check out the Xmas edition of Ears and Eyeballs!
- Check in on Facebook first thing in the morning – do the proof of life thing so you don’t get the worried text messages. Then put your phone on silent and vibrate and screen calls – don’t allow your entire day to be overrun with phone calls. This is your gift to yourself – sanity and self care.
- To Fizz or not to fizz – I don’t drink alone or at home aside from a hot toddy when I feel like death warmed up but I do think exceptions should be made. Fizz from the moment you finish your first morning coffee. Cheers to you and your amazing self.
I’ll be watching – The Watcher on Netflix and A Christmas Carol on BBC 1 with a sprinkling of Christmas movie magic and ending the day by dancing around my bedroom to Last Christmas and raising a glass to George Michael!
Enjoy Christmas however you plan to do it but if it is solo it is certainly anything by sad!
