Day One

12 days of an alternative Christmas.

For the homeless person.

This time of year Christmas comes as a fire hose. At first it is fantastic to see the perfectly managed perfect Christmas adverts yet soon the marketing, the adverts don’t stop.
We are fed a constant reminder of what Christmas is supposed to look like.

Families together having fun and laughter, tables are full, everyone is merry, grateful, and fine.

I wrote this series because that story is out of date.

It is not wrong just a little incomplete.

Before I go any further, let me be clear.
I have not turned into Scrooge. There are no ghosts needed to appear at my bed.
I have not become the Grinch overnight and setting out to destroy Christmas.

Although, for the record, I did once play Scrooge at primary school when I was eleven.
I even snuffed out a real candle on stage.
I am not sure that would be allowed today.

I am not anti Christmas.
I am anti pretending that everyone fits inside it.

Over the next 12 posts about a different Christmas, I am inviting you to think, notice and see.

Here is Day One.

Day One. For the homeless person.

Lord John Bird has spoken for years about poverty not just as a lack of money, but something quieter and more corrosive.
Being unseen. Being removed from the story.

So I want to start here with the homeless person.

Not as a symbol.
Not as a problem to be solved in a single post.
Not as a prompt for guilt and gratitude.

Just as a human being who still exists while the rest of us are being sold an ideal.

They are feeling.
They are someone.
They are cold.
They are tired.
They are very visible, until we decide they are not.

Christmas does not know what to do with people who do not match the image.
So it edits them out.

The point of this is simple.
This is not me asking you to do something extra.
Not another task. Not another “good deed” for December.

I am inviting you to think.
To notice.
To see.
To consider what it does to a person to be walked past like they are part of the street furniture.

and. - yes, if you want one tiny action that is not performative, it is this.

The next time you walk past someone homeless, see them:
Smile.
- Say “hi”.

Not because you are saving them.
Because you are acknowledging them.

If Christmas is about anything worth keeping, it has to make room for the people who are usually pushed to the edge of the frame.

This is not about fixing.
It is about seeing.

Listen I do not have this all figured out either.
I do not have answers that wrap neatly.

But I know that silence is part of the problem.
And presence, (not presents) however imperfect, is a start.

This series is for the unseen.
One day at a time.

!!Remember I am writing this as someone who does not have it all together.!!
This is not positivity.

It is presence.

If this landed, it is because you are not alone, even when it feels like you are.
I wish you good health this Christmas.

Truly.

Dave

The and. team
Debbie Halls-Evans