Silent night — lonely night? Christmas alone does not have to be lonely

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Every year — but this year it’s different. From the outside, everything seems the same as always: illuminated houses, gingerbread and the like on the supermarket shelves, and familiar Christmas music on the radios.

But the Christmas of 2020 is different. Government regulations and the fear of catching a cold mean that this year many people will be spending Christmas without family and friends.

How can Christmas be celebrated alone and how can you still stick to family traditions? In this article, you’ll find some helpful ideas on how to make Christmas your own little celebration.

Christmas and loneliness

There is hardly any other day of the year when so many people feel lonely as at Christmas. According to a survey from marriage relationship service around 17% of Americans spend Christmas alone every year.

Are all these people also lonely? No, because loneliness is not synonymous with being alone but is a subjective experience that is unpleasant and often painful.

That means some people feel lonely less often than others and even within our own lives, we feel lonelier in some phases of life than in others. At Christmas, this feeling of loneliness may come up in phases or it may reinforce the previous loneliness. But why do we feel so lonely at Christmas?

A richly decorated Christmas tree under which the children play with the many new achievements while the whole family sits together in harmony. This image of Christmas is already suggested to us in our childhood by traditional as well as modern media. In other words:

Christmas is sometimes associated with increased social expectations and social pressure. However if reality looks different we can feel disappointed or lonely.

Celebrating Christmas alone sounds sad?

It doesn’t have to be! Contrary to the frequent assumption that you just need to be with people again the feeling of loneliness is not tied to being alone.

In other words: even in the circle of family, we can feel alone at Christmas. Conversely however this also means that we don’t have to be lonely when we spend Christmas alone.

Celebrating Christmas alone can also be a chance to turn to your own needs. Along the lines of “Have yourself a merry little Christmas.”

5 ideas on how to spend Christmas alone

Christmas — the celebration of love. However, we can feel love not only towards family and friends but also for ourselves: namely through self-love.

Let’s take this Christmas as an opportunity to feel good in our own company. We don’t have to compromise and for once we can make the holiday all about us. The following tips will help us to do so:

1. Give yourself a gift of beautiful moments

How would you like to spend this day? Maybe you’ll use the holidays to slow down at the end of the year and take time for the things you’ve missed out on over the course of the year.

Self-care is the keyword here. How about a hot bath and an exciting book? Or maybe something more active like a walk in the snow? You can observe a festival of lights not only in the front yards of your neighborhood but often in the botanical garden or parks of your city.

2. Collect heart points

Christmas is also known as the festival of charity. Would you like to do something on this day for the people who are also alone on Christmas and need the support of others?

The possibilities here are numerous: from helping out with cold weather relief to helping out at a soup kitchen. If you’d rather play the Christmas angel from afar you can also donate food or send presents to needy children through the “Christmas in a Shoebox” campaign, for example.

3. Honor your loved ones: dealing with grief

Christmas sometimes brings up negative feelings as does mourning the loss of a loved one. After the loss, this Christmas may be the first celebration without that person.

In dealing with your grief it can help you to maintain common traditions and build new ones. For example in memory and honor of your loved one, you can light a candle or place a Christmas tree ornament engraved with the person’s name. You can also share with other grieving people, for example, in bereavement groups.

4. Digital celebration

Christmas without family and friends? If you can’t meet your loved ones in person this Christmas why not do it digitally? Cooking together, snacking on cookies, or watching your favorite Christmas movie together can also be done via digital video meetings (e.g. via WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom, FaceTime).

To really get into the Christmas spirit, you can often also set wintery backgrounds in the video chats.

Prefer less technology? Then feel free to fall back on the phone and call your loved ones. If you’d like to talk to someone else, you can also reach out to the phone counseling service during the holidays.

5. Welcome the New Year

The year is coming to an end. You can use this occasion to look back on the year and see what memories you filled it with. Afterward, you can take a look at the new year and think about what it will hold in store for you. What goals, wishes or expectations do you have for the new year?

Your invitation

Do some of our ideas appeal to you? Regardless of which of the suggestions you want to implement this year to spend your Christmas alone: Planning remains important.

Think ahead of time about how you’d prefer to spend the holiday so you don’t feel lonely. You may want to send your own invitation, in which you already present your ideas for this Christmas to your guest.

Yes, Corona is turning our lives upside down and is now affecting our Christmas, yet that doesn’t mean we have to be lonely at Christmas.

With this in mind, hoard some of these ideas on how to make your Christmas alone creative and quite cozy.

Merry Christmas.