My friend Mike posted this very helpful article (by Phil Wyman) today via facebook, it is written for people who will face Christmas alone, and offers many helpful suggestions for making the season meaningful. For too many Christmas serves to highlight this issue, along with the problems of homelessness and deprivation of many kinds and we must not forget that.
It brings other stresses too:
Over the last few weeks I have written quite a bit about my need to engage with the season of advent, and the fact that I struggle with the pressures of the season, especially the consumerism and skewed celebration of it all. I have attempted to keep up a discipline of daily reading and meditation, not always successfully as my days have become steadily busier, and although this busyness has been God-focused through Carol Services I find myself craving solitude and time to rub two thoughts together.
The flip side to the loneliness problem at Christmas is the demand to be sociable and outgoing, Christmas is well documented as a season which places unusual stresses upon relationships, it is often a time when the cracks begin to show in apparently stable families and divorce lawyers expect a flurry of calls; it seems that Christmas not only highlights loneliness, it also highlights relationship overload. Now I know there are a number of factors surrounding this, not least the consumerist nature and pressure of the season, where finances are stretched to the limit and partners with different perspectives clash. For me though the main pressure is lack of space; like many who are either introverts or marginal extroverts the constant interaction with others is wearing and draining.
So for those who struggle with Christmas overload, rather than Christmas loneliness I have a few suggestions, and maybe not so strangely they are quite similar to those suggested in The Boston Examiner linked above!
1. Try to recapture the sense of what Christmas is all about. Take time to read the story, make yourself some space, light a candle and take in the wonder of it all. This could just as easily be done in company with others using prayers and silences as you deliberately quiet yourselves and draw away from the rush to engage with the wonder.
2. Get out for a walk everyday, preferably in daylight, again if going alone is impossible the simple act of getting out and gaining more space around you will work wonders!
3.Carve out some you time, maybe to take a long hot soak, hopefully most people won't want to join you in the bath!
4.Use the end/ beginning of the day to find some solitude, which depends on whether you are a morning or an evening person. Ten minutes of listening to music or meditation can be rejuvenating for the soul.
5.Relax, Christmas is not a show, too many arguments break out because of raised expectations...
6. In a quiet moment take a good look at your loved ones, remember what a precious gift they are and say a prayer for those whose loneliness will continue long after Christmas is over this year.
This Christmas Lord,
take a corner of my life
and steal in...
invade the busyness of my doing
with the quiet of your coming
This Christmas Lord
take a corner of my mind
and steal in..
illuminate the darkness of my thinking
with the brightness of your seeing.
This Christmas Lord
take a corner of my heart
and steal in...
infuse the coldness of my loving
with the warmth of your being.
This Christmas Lord
as at Bethlehem's stable
come and steal in...
take the unprepared places of my life
and make them fit for your dwelling.
(Pat Bennett-from; Hay and Stardust)













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