Day Eight

The 12 Days of an Alternative Christmas

For the estranged child and parent..

Christmas assumes closeness.
It assumes contact.
It assumes shared history that can be returned to without consequence.
For some people, that assumption hurts.

If you are estranged from a parent or a child, this season can feel like being surrounded by reminders of something you cannot access anymore.

Questions arrive casually.
“Are you going home for Christmas?”
“Will you see your family?”
There is rarely space to answer honestly.

Victoria Song writes about personal transformation that comes from telling the truth about what is, not what we wish existed.

Estrangement is not always dramatic.
Sometimes it is quiet.
Sometimes it is necessary.

It can carry relief and grief at the same time.

You might miss someone deeply and still know that contact would cost you more than you can afford to give.

Christmas does not hold this complexity well.

It frames reconciliation as moral and distance as failure.

This post is not here to push you toward reunion.
It is not here to tell you to reach out.
It is here to say this.

Love does not disappear just because access is gone.

Boundaries are not the absence of care.

You are allowed to protect yourself and still feel the loss.

If today carries both sadness and steadiness, that makes sense.

This series is for the people loving from a distance.

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 Eight.