Kerre Woodham: A lonely season for less lucky
5:30 AM Sunday Dec 23, 2012
Christmas - a time for family. Photo / Thinkstock
I love Christmas. It's my favourite holiday of the year. Having family and friends around the table, putting on a lavish spread, coming up with thoughtful gifts for people I care about - it's a wonderful celebration.
But as I listened to people's plans for Christmas on the radio, I was struck by how alone many people are and how much they dread this time of year.
Charlie rang me and said she had no family and, although she had friends, she didn't want to crash their Christmas celebrations.
So she'd take her deckchair, head out to the cemetery where her mum and dad were buried and have a steak and cheese pie and a chocolate milkshake and read a good book until the day was over.
This year, however, a colleague had invited her to spend Christmas Day with their extended family, so it won't be so lonely.
Others draw the curtains, turn on the television and watch reruns of old movies and Christmas specials until the day draws to a close and shops reopen and people emerge back on the streets.
They don't mind that their children are too busy or too far away to spend time with them, they say. It's that so much emphasis is put on Christmas as a time for parties and families and get-togethers that it reinforces how alone they are.
So this Christmas, as I look around the table at my mad extended family, I'll count my blessings and be grateful to have each and every one of them in my life.
However, in the context of the spiritual and emotional wasteland of our souless culture, with very little in the way of meaningful ritual and community-building customs, it has filled a void, which is in itself useful, but is no substitute for a genuinely healthy community life, as part of a healthy and vibrant culture.
And, no, the answer is NOT to turn back the clock and all of us become regular church-goers again. A major reason for the drift away from organized religion was that many of us saw through the falseness of that.
For me, I found that the answer to all this is the development of my own self-empowered spiritual and emotional health and wholeness. An inner resilience that is not dependant on some cultural construct custom. So, I will be extremely happy to spend this Christmas totally on my own, which I have done for most of the past 20 years. I do really appreciate the quietness, and the absence of the usual commercially-driven hustle and noise.
Refrigerator full of beer: Check.
Ham and salad stuff in other refrigerator: Check.
Six boxes (24s) of emergency beer supplies in pantry: Check.
Bottle of gin and bottle of vodka also for emergency: Check.
Panadol for hangover: Check.
I'm gonna enjoy Christmas this year just hope I will be able to remember it!
Merry Christmas to you all.
it was great. i could do whatever i wanted.