Christmas

The Christmas season is a time for connection, reconnection and new connections. For most of us, it’s a time for being together, for meaningful conversations, and surrounding yourself with the people you love, whether family or friends. A very famous Christmas film opens with clips of connection: people coming home to arrivals at an airport, with joyful connections, hugs, kisses, handshakes, seeing old friends, new friends, loved ones, which fills the viewer with warmth. If you’re wondering how to connect this Christmas, here are some simple ways.

As we enter the Advent season, what should our focus be? According to modern Christian thought, Advent is the season of reflective preparation for Christ’s nativity at Christmas and Christ’s expected return in the Second coming. Whilst we may now see Advent as a season that serves as an anticipation of Christ’s birth, originally there was little connection between Advent and Christmas. By the 6th century, Roman Christians had tied Advent to the coming of Christ, but the coming they had in mind was his second coming in the clouds, as judge of the world. The Advent season was not explicitly linked to Christ’s first coming at Christmas until the Middle Ages. So, how does this history lesson relate to you, as a single Christian today and what could hopeful waiting look like?

Christmas can be a hard time if you’re single. It’s the end of the year and perhaps you were hoping that this Christmas would be the one that you spent with that special someone, or that you’d be introducing them to your family. There’s something about smiling families in TV adverts and couples in matching pyjamas that can make being single feel miserable, but I truly believe you can have joy at Christmas, regardless of your relationship or marital status.

Winter was a time when I felt my singleness profoundly. It seemed the romance of Christmas was everywhere, with romantic Christmas movies, dates to Christmas markets and ice rinks, cosy hot chocolates and mistletoe – and I wasn’t included. Once the romance of Christmas was over, there was the pressure of New Year. All the resolutions, the desire to find a partner that very year, the realisation that another year would begin without a kiss at midnight. One question came up repeatedly: How could I find contentment in singleness during the festive season?

As I contemplate the season of Advent, I’m aware more than ever of the importance of preparing ourselves for the good that is coming into our lives. Advent is a season of preparation ahead of the celebration of Christ’s birth and the day of His return – an expectant time, a hopeful time and a time to get ready for the love, joy and peace that is on its way. How can you prepare yourself for the love, joy and peace that’s coming your way?

I’m the sort of person who gets excited about Christmas far too early. Come November I’m cranking out the Michael Bublé, watching every cheesy Christmas movie imaginable and taking the long way home to enjoy the lights across my city. Only this year, for the first time, I’m dreading it. I don’t know whether it’s the age I turned this summer, the fact that I don’t have a permanent home at the moment or the number of friends who have recently got engaged or had babies. This year, I’d happily fast forward straight to January. I really don’t want to do another Christmas on my own. But Christmas is coming, like it or not, and I can’t hibernate for two months. So how can we choose to enjoy Christmas as a single person, when we’re really not feeling it?

The season leading up to Christmas is an exciting time of the year. Not only do we celebrate the birth of Jesus but it’s a great time for all kinds of treats – festive markets, hot chocolate and marshmallows, gingerbread, seeing family, twinkly lights and pantomimes. Despite cold weather in some parts of the world, it’s a heart-warming time of the year, and it’s very worthwhile looking for ways to make the most of Christmas and feel connected with others, whether you’re single, dating or in a relationship.

It’s that time of year again – a time of TV adverts portraying happy families, couples and children gathered around tables of food or brightly lit Christmas trees surrounded by gifts; a time of parties and gatherings and people making plans. It’s a time of year that can be tough if we’re single, triggering and isolating – a season that sometimes accentuates our aloneness and reminds us of the things we don’t yet have. Unless, that is, we can hold onto hope. Unless we can expect for a brighter future. This is the message of Advent – a time of preparation, preparing for a celebration, preparing for Christ’s arrival, for the light to come and break through the darkness.