Day Twelve

The 12 Days of an Alternative Christmas

For the person who is alone.

Christmas is described as togetherness.
Tables.
Voices.
Movement.

When you are all alone, the contrast can be sharp.
The quiet is louder.
Time stretches.
Every message and advert and song reminds you of what is supposed to be happening somewhere else.

Being alone is not always the same as being lonely.

But at Christmas, the two are often forced together.

Billy Connolly has always had a way of naming loneliness without polishing it.
Of finding humanity in the absurd fact of being a person among many people.

You can be capable and independent and still feel the weight of this day.
You might be used to managing on your own.
You might even prefer it most of the time.
That does not make this moment easier.

Christmas rarely gives permission to just exist alone.
It frames solitude as something to be fixed.
This post is not here to tell you to reach out.
It is not here to tell you to make plans.
It is here to say this.

You still belong to the world today.
Even if no one is knocking on your door.
Even if the day passes quietly.
Being alone does not make you invisible.
If all you do today is get through the hours, that is enough.

This series is for the people who sit with themselves when the noise fades.

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

PS.
I am writing this series because the non stop marketing campaigns and messaging of Christmas idealisms can leave a lot of people unseen.
This is not about doing more and not about fixing anyone.
It is an invitation to notice and to think and to see.

One day at a time.

This is Day Twelve..