Christmas

Christmas: festive or lonely?

If you are reading this it may be because you are feeling particularly alone this festive season and have googled ‘only child’ or ‘adult only’. My research highlighted that many adult onlies feel most alone at Christmas because they have no siblings or even parents to share it with. For others, who do not have a partner or children, Christmas can feel very lonely. I know after my parents’ died, and I was divorced and both children spent some time with their father over Christmas I often felt quite cut off from the ‘family gatherings’ of other people. I always tried to find others in the same position, to share these times together, and that certainly helps. However it is not always possible, so I am keeping in mind those people who do not have family to be with at this seasonal family time. I also know from my experience [...]

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Does anyone else find Christmas difficult?

It’s Boxing Day and, as I’ve done for many years now, I have just managed to ‘get through’ another Christmas. All around everyone seems to be moaning about being stuck with the family having no idea what it’s like to be, as it were, standing outside in the snow and cold looking through the window at family life. I was born just after the war at a time when women obtained their only status by becoming a wife and mother. My mother had to wait six years before I came along and, whilst I now appreciate how difficult that must have been for her, I have always felt that my only reason for being alive is to give my mother the status of ‘mother’. She rarely praised me (though she was never unkind) because she was so scared I’d be seen as a ‘spoilt only’. This was all about her [...]

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