Just finished writing this...

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Do you know what it's like to be a Christmas Orphan? 

Nah I don't reckon you do. 

Well it starts in November, when all the Halloween displays are gone and you start to see Christmas displays instead, the carols start playing and you start getting increasingly sad because you know what's coming.

The kids get all excited for holidays, that they're going away like they do every year and the parents get to escape the daily grind and have some breathing space for a change. 

The families are all travelling in and they're having this big family get together, with presents under the Christmas tree, too much food and churches full of people "because it's Christmas"

And then there's you, that people invite you over for the day just because they feel like you shouldn't be alone, but that you're more lonely in a sea full of people than you are actually on your own. 

You go to church, sing the carols, listen to the nativity story and then go to a families house where you feel like the intruder. Because while everyone else is talking to each other and catching up on each other's lives, you're just trying to fit in and try and feel like you are contributing somehow. Some try and talk to you but eventually they ask you about family and where yours is and you make an excuse to leave the conversation.

Then there's the typical family present time and the kids open theirs, the adults do some kind of gift exchange and you get a packet of candles wrapped in a tea towel. The token guest gift.

Then there's all the families that go away, that they're the ones doing the travelling this year and they don't tell you because why do you need to know about their holiday plans? 

Because they don't know how much them being there matters to you, that it's hard right now and suddenly they're not there and that makes it worse. That you have no family holidays, you don't go away because going away is a family thing and it's weird to go alone.

So you learn to not reach out because you can't handle the disappointment of them potentially not being there. You avoid watching tv because you don't need the reminders of the life you don't have and maybe never had. You sing the carols but not with joy or happiness, rather to just not be noticed. 

You survive because that's all you can really do. 

Then you cry with relief when it's all over because you made it through another Christmas.