Day Seven

The 12 Days of an Alternative Christmas

For the parent who has no money and no food.

Christmas is expensive before you even buy anything.
School events.
Expectations.
The quiet comparison that starts early in December and does not stop.

If you are a parent worrying about money and food this Christmas, the pressure is constant.
Not just the numbers.
The meaning attached to them.

Adam Smith wrote about dignity.
About how poverty is not only material, but social.
Christmas amplifies this.

It is the shame of not being able to participate in what is considered normal.
That shame can be heavier than the lack itself.

You might be counting.
What can stretch?
What can wait?
What you can quietly go without so someone else does not have to?
You might be smiling [with a grimace] while doing the maths in your head.
Wondering if you have done enough?
Wondering if you are failing at something that everyone else seems to manage.
Christmas marketing makes this worse.

It sells abundance as love.
It frames provision as proof.

This post is not here to offer budgeting advice.
It is not here to tell you to be grateful.
It is here to say this.

Your worth as a parent is not measured in what you can buy.
Your care is not invisible just because it does not come wrapped.
Providing is not only about money.

It is about presence and protection and making hard choices quietly.
If this season feels heavy, that does not mean you are doing it wrong.

It means you are carrying responsibility in a system that makes this harder than it should be.

This series is for the people holding the weight behind the scenes.

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 Seven.