No one talks about how great it can be to spend time alone at Christmas… but they should

The world was built for two, or so the Christmas ads will tell you, and at this most festive time of year, there can be no escaping the ‘two is company’ mantra. The pressure is undoubtedly on to fill every available slot in your diary simply seeing people: family you haven’t seen in 364 days, friends that you saw at 2019’s New Year’s eve party, the neighbour you didn’t know you had…

Be around someone; that’s the undercurrent of festive cheer when you take a step back. And yes, this can be glorious – who doesn’t want to be around their nearest and dearest when the weather is cold, Home Alone is playing in the background, and there’s mulled wine to be had?

The thing is, this feels blatantly one-sided to me because even doing that comes with its own pressure.

I am someone who enjoys her own company. I can go anywhere alone, and I happily do so, never feeling like I should plus-one it for the sake of simply having a second body there. I’m basking in my own selfishness if you will. Working to my own agenda, which is compromise-free, for the most part.

However, in my mind’s eye, I often see Mr Grinch wagging his finger at me, thoroughly disappointed as I saunter down Grafton Street solo. “This isn’t the way it’s meant to be at Christmas,” says the sneer-filled voice in my head. And he’s right. Usually, we’re told to spare a thought for those who feel lonely at Christmas — which we should absolutely do; this time of year is hard, not everyone will be jumping for joy. So many don’t even have a home to go to, let alone a Christmas tree — but we’re rarely told to embrace time spent alone.

A different pressure

Because the thing is, there’s a big difference between loneliness and being on your own. It’s perfectly possible to be content in your solitude, as happy giving the finger to the spectacle that has become the 12 pubs of Christmas, as it is to be blissed out at the centre of a busy group. And one of the reasons I prefer time spent alone this time of year is because being around a lot of people can occasionally make me feel horribly isolated and lonely; the exact opposite of how I feel when I am actually alone.

It’s all to do with the pressure I feel when I’m in a group; the need to be “on”, happy and relaying the few genuinely interesting bits of my life to strangers I’ve never met. I worry that I’m not joining in enough, or that I’ll be the odd one out and somehow have missed the event that everyone talks about for years to come.

And yes, everyone feels loneliness on occasion. It’s part of the human condition but if you enjoy time spent by yourself, you shouldn’t feel constrained by the societal pressures which tell you that, as a woman, you’ve failed if your number one priority isn’t to find a life partner. Or that time alone is, as I’ve been told, “odd.”

Personally, time spent alone at such a busy time of year is something I look forward to – to take stock of the highs and lows of the past 12 months and really to remind myself how lucky I am… to be happy and in good health despite personal challenges, is quite a milestone. And as I sit now in my new flat, in a new country, completely alone with nothing but fairy lights aglow, I’m revelling in contentedness with a glass of wine as I ponder the year that was. I’ve realised that I simply feel happy to just be. You’re alone but never really lonely, not if you’ve reached that level of comfort in your own skin.

Main photograph: Unsplash