I've tried to be open and generous to others during the holidays and it almost always results in serious awkwardness. There's a matchmaking problem here. I wish I could magically know who in the neighbourhood I could just knock on the door of and say hi and invite them to the extra seat at our table.

I've had luck at retirement homes. And holy cow if you have little kids, you are so welcome there (as long as you've met the administration and they feel comfortable with you). Joy disobeys the laws of thermodynamics and young children effortlessly generate joy in the elderly.

When a bunch of us relocated to the Valley, we would do annual FriendsGiving and FriendsMas. As everyone has gotten older and busier, more stressed out or departed, that's kind of gone by the wayside.

Later on when I had my startup, my cofounder and our manager-of-everything would find a place for all of the orphans who were like we had been - without anything to do for the holidays because they, too, had recently moved away from their social circle and family. Everyone wins.

So I say: bid the awkwardness and putting yourself out there. I look back at that era fondly and yes, sometimes it was awkward, but mostly it was not. It was always worth it.

(Ironically, this year all of our plans fell apart, so my wife and I are on our own.)

If I wanted to do something like this, how would I find the orphans? I honestly don't know any grown-up orphans myself. There's definitely a matchmaking problem for finding certain people. Would I put up an ad on the Internet or in the streets saying, "Hey guys, holiday celebration happening, wanna invite all the orphans out there!" Or? Genuinely curious.

sorry for the lack of clarity; "orphans" here was our way of referring to employees who had moved across the country and had neither family [sometimes not in the US at all] nor social networks due to having moved cross-country to join us.

I support this, but offer a word of caution: When we did a Friendsgiving, word got out and friends invited friends and we ended up hosting about 100 people. It was chaotic fun, but also a big lesson. ;)

>I wish I could magically know who in the neighbourhood I could just knock on the door of and say hi and invite them to the extra seat at our table.

You should be doing that the second that you or they setup shop in the new neighbourhood.

It makes the christmastime awkwardness much less so!

Because yea, just assuming that a random stranger is going to be lonely for christmas (whether they live down the street from you or not) could make for a really awkward time, I agree!

For sure. My wife and I rented for a few years and bought our house this summer. We've done a lot better job meeting people. A lot of people just kind of want to be left alone and you've got to be able to take that in stride and move on to saying hi to the next neighbours.

"Kind of"? Nah, truly and really. Thats me. I am looking forward to christmas eve and the holidays afterwards being alone and having time for myself. Someone knocking on my door and offering to rescue me from this situation would be in for a very awkward situation indeed.

When you live in a friendly neighborhood, it doesn't have to be an awkward meeting. Our neighborhood is very often getting together casually for different things. Whenever a new neighbor moves in, one of us always goes and knocks on their door and says hello, gives them contact info, and mentions the next time we're getting together. If they show up or contact us, they're interested in being social. If they don't, they're welcome to their space. By the time holidays come around, we all know who might like to be together and who might not. No awkwardness either way.

The risk is if you talk to people are both lonely and annoying or toxic. They may never leave you alone!

Don't think of it as a risk.

Think of it as an opportunity to show somebody how to live their lives in a meaningful way that does not harm or annoy other people.

What is so horrible about awkwardness?

I've witnessed people talk about it like it's the plague.

It's just a bit of discomfort, and then you move on.

The point of social interactions is to connect with someone. If most of an interaction is awkward, you're not connecting. At that rate, you're just wasting time, and might as well do something alone.

In the context of TFA, connecting is about filling a need for social interaction. That cannot be filled by awkwardness.

If it's business or there's some other ulterior motive: sure.

Yeah but the beginning of any relationship with anyone who's in any way different from you, is going to be awkward. If you push through that, you start to learn and get better at relating to that person, and they do the same. If you cut it off prematurely because it's awkward, then you just created the self-fulfilling prophecy that the entire relationship was awkward.

I think the OP's motive here is to offer interaction to the other person who might be lonely. Not to make the OP feel good while not wasting time.

Awkwardness is due to lack of social graces, and communication skills. Perhaps one can train on these in the absence of other, live humans--read, for example, "How to Work a Room," or "The Fine Art of Smalltalk"--but ultimately, one must learn to navigate awkwardness.

In fact, I might go so far as to argue that the "connection" you're talking about is generated only by _resolving awkwardness_. Where there's none to resolve, there's no connection to be made. Relationships worn smooth by years of resolution aren't valuable in the same way.

You can effortfully apply all the social graces and make correct small talk, and still come away from an interaction thinking, “that was excruciating.” These situations can be even more awkward than when someone actually commits a faux pas.

I do phone befriending with AgeUK. Yes it’s awkward to begin with for them and you. But you might be the only person they get to speak to that week. Tough it out. It gets better.

You're talking about a group of people who has, statistically speaking at least, a lot more early life experience with awkwardness.

Many of us took the wrong lesson. Being clever, we learned to route around awkwardness instead of driving through it. This creates a whole other set of problems that are just as bad but easier to dismiss. Like not having deep connections with many people.

I wouldn't say there's something horrible about it. But if you're trying to invite someone to something, if there's social awkwardness, I think it usually means that they don't want to come, but they also don't know how to say no in a nice way because what kind of a weird person rejects generosity? Ignore the second part of that sentence, the focus should be on the first part, that it means they probably aren't interested in coming, and most likely also not interested in reciprocating the generosity.

It's not a bit if you have social anxiety.

I have social anxiety, and the prospect of awkwardness is sooooo much worse than the actual experience.

The prospect is positively crippling, but once I manage to push through that, things tend to work out. And when they don't it's not that bad. Then, next time, the prospect is again crippling, though perhaps a bit less.

Small steps.

> There's a matchmaking problem here.

Absolutely agree. We need an efficient algorithm for matching based upon common interests, agreeability, and politeness.

I wonder if matchmaking algorithms from video games would come in handy for this? I think the League of Legends queue algo would be perfect for this.

Here's hoping I can break into plat.

Shout out to religion here. Everyone in my faith is assigned one or two people to "minister" to and everyone also has someone ministering to them. Instant friends. And no need for the elderly to be completely alone and have to turn to craigslist. I can't imagine this need going unfilled in the structure of my local church community.

Obviously with the decline of religion, this situation will only become more common. People need a built in community structure, and nothing has stepped up to replace church yet. I don't think r/atheism is going to fill that void anytime soon.

I wish there was a practical way to keep these parts of religion without having to believe in the supernatural or the truth of one specific ancient book.

I think you can, but I wonder if it's possible to separate the positive role of religion with what makes it toxic, even in secular form.

In particular, I think one of most toxic aspects is exclusion. If a person doesn't conform to a certain set of ideas or lifestyles, then you're not welcome to participate in the community. In extreme cases, exclusion could even mean execution. Our history (and present) are full of examples of this, which is why secularism and separation of church and state are such important ideas.

But at the same time, this known conformity to a shared set of ideas is what creates such a strong community. Even if a person is a stranger, you generally know how to interact with them if you have a shared religion. This eases social interaction and helps create a foundation of trust in larger groups where you can't intimately know every person. In fact, the tighter you constrict what people are allowed to believe or how they're allowed to live, the less unknowns and the greater the benefit.

Of course, this creates some horrifying situations for people can't or won't conform to the rules of the community around them. An obvious example is homosexuals born into religions that don't see that as an acceptable lifestyle. At best, they spend their lives in a state of constant shame and self-disgust, maybe suffering under clumsy attempts to "pray the gay away".

This is the first time I've tried to put words to this idea, so I may not be expressing it well or hitting the truth quite right.

I like your thoughts on this. Have to disagree about exclusion being the problem.

If community is a product, exclusion is it means of production. The problem with religion isn't exclusion, it's a partially outdated set of rules by which the filter is applied. (And a missing update functionality for the source code, respectively an inherit problem with the rate of change, as too much change in too short of a time defeats the purpose of rules, exclusivity and therefore community).

The impression I got from the Unitarians is that that's what they're trying to go for. I was never a "member" of a UU congregation but I got hauled to their services a couple of times and there was just a whiff of supernatural in what they were doing, certainly nothing like all the kneeling and praying and lamentations of my catholic upbringing :-)

The people I knew who were into it described it as the "social club aspects of church without all that other stuff." I don't know, it might work for you?

The Quakers do something like this too, but with a much heavier lean on the meditative aspects of a religious practice. The few times I've gone to their services it was much more my (someone who is fascinated by spirituality and religious practice but without that bit of their brain that tells them God(s) is/are talking to them) speed.

One reason this works better with religion is that membership of a religion means being subjected to the same prescribed morality. It means a lot more uniformity, which makes it easier to connect. After all, there is less chance you'll hit upon a subject you massively disagree on.

While that is no doubt true, I feel like that is only part of the story. Many (most?) religions teach to love all people, even if you don’t agree with them. It’s easy to get along with those who agree with you. It’s much harder to get along with those who don’t.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. - GKC

I get what you're saying. But I've adapted my thinking over the years. I'll try to put it as succinctly as I can get it since this sort of topic can obviously take up far more than a comment on a forum.

I view religion as a tool. And as with any tool it can be used for good or bad. Also, whether or not we decide to keep the tool in our toolbox depends on one general question - "does it serve a purpose?" If the answer to that is yes, then it is a valuable tool. That is how I choose to view religion.

I also think many of the "supernatural" elements you mention are not to be taken literally. However, I do think it is important for human beings to believe in something other/greater than themselves. I think it keeps us grounded and more connected to reality rather than just viewing our existence as some sort of meaningless accident.

Most of the other supernatural elements have to do with a fundamental structure of the world and the way we view it. Meaning that they are stories that have been condensed down over time to explain some base value - i.e. the tower of Babel, the flood / Noah's ark, the story of Job. These are effectively parables meant to illustrate a key facet of life. They are equivalent to short story fiction designed to explain a component of a larger value system.

That being said, I think religion in general is usually taught very poorly to young children. I know it's hard to explain some of the deeper meanings to children but at the same time, if you talk to a lot of the openly religious adults they also don't seem to understand a lot of this. I saw some psychology professor talking about this problem, and he said that his guess to explain this would be that these stories have been so boiled down to their core components after thousands of years that they have become extremely condensed such that it becomes almost like a form of subliminal messaging. Not in the literal sense, but rather that these stories are so foundational that they are simply accepted as core truths. And because of that they haven't been challenged for hundreds or thousands of years. And because of that, people haven't had to put forth a proper explanation for them. I'm not saying they are wrong to challenge them. Or that the teachings are wrong. I'm saying instead that because they've had this sort of untouchable truth to them, people are just told "this is how it is" more or less, and no one has really been properly explaining why those stories are the way they are.

For example, there are many atheists that claim we can finally just dispense with the absurdity of religion now that society has basically become enlightened with all these fundamental human rights, lower crime rates, mass education, etc. They claim that society finally "gets it" for most of the critical stuff and human beings are hard-wired as more or less "good" and religion has only stood in the way over the millennia. But that's only half true. Religion has been misused, sure. But the problem is that even though human beings are somewhat a blank slate but also somewhat hard-wired for basic good (babies have been tested and shown indications of not liking violence, injustice, etc.), this doesn't mean there aren't other forces that aren't religious that may slip in and do the evil work of "bad" religion when it is missing. It's also not counting the fact many of the things those atheists take as givens are not, in fact, givens in much of the world. Take freedom of speech. They say this is obvious and would be granted for all if not for oppressive things like religion. But freedom of speech isn't the state of being for many, many parts of the world. They discount just how much the very fabric of western society is linked to the judeo/christian religions. The entirely of society is founded upon those beliefs. So if you think you can easily just separate the two by getting rid of religion, I think it is a way oversimplifying things.

Hopefully this rant made some sort of sense.

If I could find a structured community of dedicated people who just want to have community and connection I would join. But I don’t want to have to commit to any of the crazy stuff religions tend to want you to believe.

No doubt, but without the "crazy stuff" there isn't enough of a reason for people to commit to building communities like this. That crazy stuff makes introverted, socially anxious me shoot off a text to some random neighbor 20 years older than myself every couple weeks to make sure he's doing alright and see if he needs anything, and invite my other neighbor over to dinner, whom I probably never would have said hello to otherwise.

Why does the "crazy stuff" have to be religion? Couldn't it work just as well surrounding boardgames, sports or knitting?

I think the center issue is having something in common, which binds people together.

Generally the ministering groups are doing it because they feel it's required of them by God.

Once they get over that initial little hump it becomes friendly instead of just mandatory, but it takes that push.

How often do you make friends with complete strangers with whom you have nothing in common (that you know)?

You know, if anything coffee makes me more likely to shoot random texts to people, though.

Just to clarify as Im not sure i follow. Would you not be doing this if you weren't religious?

Literally _this_ is sufficient, I think.

Yeah, the Mormon in the other thread (hi) seems to be suggest that their supernatural belief system is integral to their social system, and that's a hard claim to disprove--the LDS church is possibly the densest store of social capital on the planet.

That being said, I believe there are other belief systems capable of inspiring these connections, overcoming them. There have to be, since they're all based in the nervous system. And, of course, if you're a Mormon, none of the "crazy stuff" is, ontologically speaking, supernatural. It's part of nature.

What does "a structure community" look like? I mean, how would you recognize one when you saw it.

This made my day. So nice to be reminded that there people trying to care for each other and make a positive difference in the lives of those around them.

> So nice to be reminded that there people trying to care for each other and make a positive difference in the lives of those around them

Is there any other kind of person?

Ah, I see you have yet to meet my ex.

Curious to know which religion you follow? How does assignment work? I suppose they need to be part of the same congregation?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or as we're often known, Mormons.

There's a mens group and a womens group, and the leaders of each of these groups make the assignments and then hear reports on how everyone's doing. All of this happens within a single congregation, or "ward" as we call them. And wards are dictated by location. So there's no concept of "church shopping" within this religion, which helps with organizational efforts like this.

Hey I learned something new today! I grew up more Protestant which leads to a lot of church shopping and people shifting around when they become uncomfortable with their current location. This also leads churches to try to “market” themselves with clumsy buzzwords and multi-million dollar stage/lighting presentations. I appreciate Mormonism’s simple solution to this and admire how it works to better keep your community together. Thanks for sharing!

I come from a family of immigrants. Growing up, I at times felt oppressed by the constant throng of cousins and uncles and aunts and family friends at our home...but now that I'm older I greatly appreciate the dense social fabric that envelops my life. I sometimes think that the dark side of a society that extols individuality and independence is the possibility of immense alienation. I'm grateful to live in a country that creates space for self-expression and agency, but I sometimes think that for those who are not used to being part of a big community, life can become quite lonely.

It's something I'm struggling with now, tbh. I'm not an immigrant but my extended family is fairy close, even out to second cousins (my grandmother's brothers are super close to her, so our families get along; same with part of my grandfather's siblings), and I know I'll miss it. Yet, sadly, there's not many jobs here and if I stay I'll likely stay teaching, which isn't bad but I'm not sure how I long I'd last before burnout.

I've got an offer to leave and study Quantitative Finance in a completely different country (one I want to move to and have visited many times) and am wondering if it's worth it. Man, it's difficult. Not to mention all my friends being here too (though I do have some in the new country, thankfully). Having that social inclusion and closeness is super nice, and I know I'd miss it.

same. but extended family rarely gets along and really is a force of opression. My cousins family was stigmatized by the extended family when he came out as gay. He feels the constant guilt.

All the extended families i've seen are full of gossip, jealousies and backstabbing. Maybe all those things make us human too i don't know.

As an immigrant (moved US->Southeast London) who probably won't be able to have kids, I find that I really wish there was a way to become an 'uncle' somehow. Modern society gives us a lot of choice and mobility, but also a lot of ways to find ourselves unrooted.

The LGBTQ community originated the concept of "Chosen Family", people you willfully make a connection with as deep as blood family ties. As you can imagine, this is a particularly pressing need for people who are forcefully severed from their families, often at a very young age.

Some of us have to work mindfully to get something many people take for granted. Hopefully naming the idea gives you a way to talk about it with other people.

Maybe in the future, the mafia will specialise in the two things it's really good at, pizza delivery _and_ helping people find social connections as deep as blood family ties?

Is there a Big Brothers/Big Sisters program in the UK? Or perhaps an opportunity to help serve meals to the elderly or homeless or impoverished? I tend to volunteer on holidays if I'm not headed to a family gathering. Meals on Wheels is a great program in the US and it involves a lot more than just dropping off food.

How about volunteer to be a football coach, or a coach for some other sport?

You can actually rent uncles in Japan.

https://www.businessinsider.sg/you-can-now-rent-middle-aged-...

This depends strongly on your friendship group. We've adopted half a dozen of our close friends as honorary aunties and uncles for our kids.

Godfather concept?

Interesting to see this here tonight. Just a few hours ago, my wife mentioned to me what she heard from some nurses: apparently, Christmas is one of the busiest times in hospitals, because a lot of people with elderly parents and grandparents would invent illnesses (or even cause them, by e.g. hiding or substituting medicine) to get them admitted to hospitals during Christmas, just to avoid having to have a Christmas dinner.

She also told me that some time ago, there was an ad aired about this problem in Poland; it featured an elderly man who tried, year after year, to invite his family for Christmas, to no effect. He eventually posted a notice about his own funeral, and as the family came and was surprised to see him alive, he brought in the dinner and said, "because that was the only way I could get you here".

Stories like this make me sick in my stomach. No matter the bad blood that can be present in a family, I just can't imagine how one can treat one's own parents this way.

It's not the kids responsibility to make sure their grown adult parents have a social life. That's even more depressing.

I totally understand where people are coming from with that though -- the parents gave life and raised the kids, so shouldn't the kids repay them? The only thing is, the kids didn't (as far as we know) choose to be brought into life and have the experiences with the family they had. Maybe they were terrible or at best for some, neutral. Then, why would they feel the need to "pay back" for that?

Finally, would you rather someone hang out with you because they feel guilty obligation to do so versus happy freeness to do so? I wouldn't want someone feeling guilted into spending time with me because they "owe me one." If it was from a place of "happy freeness," then sure.

> It's not the kids responsibility to make sure their grown adult parents have a social life. That's even more depressing.

Jesus, we're not talking about setting the parents up on dates, we're talking about a single Christmas dinner with family.

Honestly I would feel more comfortable managing my mothers online dating accounts until the day she dies(not that she has any that I know of anyway) than attending yet another christmas dinner. And I don't have any problems with seeing my family, it's just christmas is such an awkward time all around - to me at least.

Exactly -- so why is it a big deal if someone chooses not to participate? Lots of cultural and learned expectations around holidays. That's ok though, we all can choose for ourselves what's right I think.

I feel like, with the man, it really depends. There’s some cases where the elderly parents may have caused so much trauma to a now grown child that they don’t want to have to interact with them again, which is unfortunately common with my friend group. Sometimes it’s just .. better that way.

It was actually in Germany, not in Poland, although it was also quite heavily discussed in Poland.

Here is the ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4COtJ_5-dPM

Edit: When I think about it, the most well known ad for Christmas in Poland is the one below - it's related to the fact that there are a huge number of young Poles that emigrated to the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU5Rnd-HM6A

Ugh those scenes of him dressed up eating dinner alone are heartbreaking.

There are terrible families out there. Just because it’s family doesn’t mean you have to suffer permanently. Some people have kids for the sake of having them, not caring about their well-being at all. In other words, being a parent doesn’t make you a good parent or person.

I get your point though. Family should be first (IMHO) and even major disagreements shouldn’t be met with ghosting. Sometimes it’s just unbearable, and it’s the only choice unfortunately.

Well, that's my point. I see people hung on my apparent dismissal of "bad blood", but that wasn't the core of what I meant. I just can't imagine how people can end up in a situation where they'd be actively getting rid of their elders over Christmas[0] by faking or causing illness to them. There's a difference between refusing to visit or care about someone you don't like, and getting them admitted into a hospital to get rid of them for a few days.

--

[0] - And May break - a bunch of Polish holidays close together; reportedly the second busiest hospital time, for the same reason.

Excuse me?

I grew up with my dad physically beating the family (mom and kids), breaking our stuff, my mother excusing his behavior and telling us (kids) we were they problem, both of my parents berating me daily that I'm a worthless human being, everything I did was wrong, and that they hated me and wish I was never born.

Why would I voluntarily subject myself to this? Because they are my parents? Well I didn't want any of this; I didn't ask to be born.

>The woman in Tulsa, who identified herself only as Carrie, said she had been fighting cancer and was estranged from her daughter, who has refused to let her see her granddaughter even though both live close by.

>“I really thought the feeling would go away, but my heart is so broken,” she said in an email. She posted the ad on Dec. 11, then went to her granddaughter’s dance studio and sat outside, hoping to catch a peek of her through the window.

interesting that this is sprinkled in there, this is super weird boundary breaking behavior. I wonder if its related to why they no longer talk.

That and the throwaway sentence near the end:

>In the end, Carrie said she decided to spend Christmas with friends.

Wait, all this time she had friends to spend time with? Honestly this seems more like her complaining about her estrangement from her family, than it does about being lonely.

I bet the estranged daughter's story would read a lot differently, and would love to read it.

This is a pretty clear case of stalking. When children cut the connection to their parents, it is super easy to side with the poor mother. However, people tend to ignore that the pressure for the children must have been quite high to go to such an extend. This makes me sad, since I know how it feels if your parents dont respect boundaries.

Unpopular opinion, there is always more complexity and culpability in these sentimental stories.

Even in the broken social fabric of Western culture, there are still many opportunities to contribute to and find genuine community.

However it requires a sense of humility and focus on others overself. Among other things.

I know of many 'lonely' people who are highly dysfunctional and have burned their family and other communities that have tried to engage them.

Sometimes people do get a raw deal and are genuine victims. Other times people reap the whirlwind of their own bad behaviours and attitudes. Sometimes a mix of both. Life is messy.

Just want to chime in that there is nothing wrong with spending your time alone during the holidays. I have family but I’d rather travel during this time for leisure. What’s so bad about being alone? I prefer it honestly. It allows me to contemplate on the past year and reflect on myself. With family all you will get is petty family politics, gossip, bringing up things that happened years ago, etc.

Do this every year for the next twenty and see if you feel the same way.

In the case of elders, they often lack any tangible social contact. Let alone with that of their own families.

A small subset of people will be fine living life completely aloof, but we're social animals -- this would drive the majority of us crazy.

I imagine things are difficult if you already feel lonely outside of the holidays. At that point, having to be alone during them, when you know and see that so many others do have company, it really stings.

Outside the holidays being alone can be 'an accident of circumstance'. During them, being alone can feel like confirmation there is no-one for you.

(Note, not my feelings, no need to worry)

Anyone from the UK, I would urge to join up for https://www.ageuk.org.uk/services/befriending-services/sign-...

It’s a brilliantly organized scheme - you get online training and a telephone interview before you go live and it just requires you to give up 30 minutes of your time a week to talk and listen for 30 minutes. I signed up and it is brilliant- and so well organized

One thing I don't understand about American culture is thanksgiving and how it interracts with Christmas. If your family meets up for thanksgiving does that mean Christmas isn't so important to meet up with extended family?

We have an elderly neighbour who has 3 children and I'm horrified to find out she'll be alone at Christmas, but they all met up just a few weeks ago so I'm not sure if its normal or not.

It really depends on a variety of things. If people are spread out geographically, if they travel for one, they don't for the other. If people are relatively local, often one holiday is with one side of the family while the other holiday is the other.

After a generation of couples having 2-3 kids and those kids growing up to have 1-2 kids, it makes sense that "extended" families aren't all that extended any more.

One of my grandmothers was the oldest of 7, while both my parents were oldest of two, and I'm the oldest of two. Add in our physical distances and it's easy through honest poor scheduling (vs malice) for a grandparent, sibling, etc to be 100% on their own for a holiday.

As an American, I wish we would just combine Thanksgiving and Christmas and take a week off. The mere month between major holidays is weird. And, culturally, Christmas is a bigger deal, but Thanksgiving has the guaranteed long weekend, so it’s the one you can count on traveling for.

Or move it to October, like Canada, since Americans don't seem to get a holiday in October.

Thanksgiving is for one side of the family, Christmas for the other. Isn't that how most people do it?

I host Christmas Orphans parties. Anyone who does not have a place can come and have lunch.

God I need one . So damn lonely in the LA suburbs; moved from Russia, no friends, no coworkers, no relatives, basically it'll be a usual day in the office for me. I could cook a meal, but I have noone to share it with.

Living in a densely populated city like LA just compounds the loneliness as you are constantly surrounded by happy people and groups of friends/family. I went through it myself for a few years. The best thing i did was to go find a random spot to eat out. Eating alone used to be really hard for me, but i got over it and i would come home feeling 100% better mood.

:( all I have for you are internet hugs. Wish I could do more.

People will likely create an app for this, not realizing they're contributing to the culture creating situations like this.

These are the kinds of problems I’d love to be able to figure out how to solve with technology.

My mom must feel this lonely during the holidays . Simply brutal.

I have to wonder why you notice this and write it here? Can't you or don't you want to connect to her?

Families often have more than two people and sympathy for their feelings means sometimes folks get left out. If your family gets to avoid this pain , count an extra blessing this holiday .

Why not meet up with other people in the same situation (possibly also elderly)?

I have at times invited friends who didn't want to celebrate with their family. But a complete stranger would be too much for me (with little children).

I'm not Christian, so I may have some terms wrong here, but:

Isn't Christmas a religious holiday? Can she not attend a mass or a Christmas service and participate in Church events around the holidays? Isn't this one of the main functions the Church provides? Wouldn't there be many opportunities in nearly any Church for social activities?

My local Jewish minyan is having an event tonight with a public menorah lighting, traditional food, games (including an Oculus VR Hanukkah experience!). There were plenty of opportunities to meet people the past few days and during the week. That's one of the functions of a religious community. We sent out public notices on Nextdoor, etc, and invited everybody in the community.

>Isn't Christmas a religious holiday?

No, not really. There is almost nothing Christian in modern Christmas. Yes, about 15% of nominal Christian will attend church but everything from the date (birthday of the Sun) to Christmas trees are pagan.

In Australia, one of the least religious countries on Earth have Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists getting Christmas photos with Santa at the shops. It is cultural, not religious. It is similar to how Australia loves the Chinese New Year or America loves St Patricks Day.

A typical Aussie Christmas lunch is prawns (not shrimp), crab, cold roast meats and salads.

Yes, Christmas has roots in pagan traditions, but it absolutely is a Christian holiday and the Church has been celebrating it for many centuries. Note the word "Christ" in both words.

And yes, to the GP, these are indeed functions the church is supposed to fulfill. My family used to invite some of the widows in our church over for Christmas regularly, and all our lives were better for it.

Christmas does not belong to Christians, is not a specifically Christian holiday, and essentially never has been.

The date, trees, wreaths, Santa, gift giving, and caroling are all 'pagan' traditions.

Everyone I know, almost none of whom are Christian, celebrates at this time of year in a completely secular way.

I started to write a point-by-point response but realized I just don't want to spend the time on it.

It's possible my grasp of the history here is wrong, but I'm fairly convinced yours is.

I sing Christmas carols with explicitly Christian lyrics that date back at least centuries.

Santa is certainly secular at this point, but he's a young figure, and there's a case to be made that he's rooted in Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna, a.k.a. "St. Nick".

Many other Christmas traditions do have their roots in pagan holidays, yes. Current observance is largely secular, yes.

But, anything that's been observed by Christians for centuries is clearly Christian at least in part. Claiming the holiday has never been Christian is absurd and shows that you've never bothered to study Church history (which of course you don't have to, but if you haven't you should not pretend you know it).

Christ - Jesus of Nazareth, held by Christians to be the fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the eventual coming of a Messiah.

Mass - Mass is the main eucharistic liturgical service in many forms of Western Christianity.

Christmas.

Furthermore, the top comment was mentioning Christian Christmas activities, ignoring the derailment of the discussion into secularity, the answer is most likely a plain yes.

Furthermore, I’m willing to bet that (especially in a large city) there are already Facebook events that are not related to religion that give you something do for Christmas.

Depends on the country and the community, but as a mainstream religion, Christianity's holidays became social customs in a lot of places. Christmas, in particular, is a family event.

As someone who grew up in europe, let me introduce you to the wonderful world of catholic atheism. We celebrate christmas, easter, and have saint nick. We even know all the stories and the lessons.

But we never go to church and don’t believe god exists. Or at least the stories are just stories and lessons, not reality. It’s a cultural thing. Tradition.

In Slovenia where I’m from some 65% of the population self identifies as Christian, but only 32% believe in there being any form of higher power.

Don't know why you're being downvoted, that's a pretty accurate description of christianity in most of Europe.

I grew up in a family that self identified as catholic, I was baptized, and yet we never went to church and frankly religion is not something that was ever a subject of much discussion or interest in the family.

In the US this is called "Cafeteria Catholicism."

I think the accurate term for it is post-Christian society.

Christmas is both a religious and secular holiday. Jesus would have been born at some point of the year other than December according to the Bible, and Christmas (like Easter) was originally a pagan celebration that was likely co-opted intentionally.

Precisely. Christmas is definitely not Biblically inspired just adopted by the church. Elements such as Santa are definitely not Biblical.

I am a Christian who doesnt celebrate Christmas because its origins are extrabiblical and pagan. The 7 feast days (Jewish holidays) are much more Biblical and Christian in my opinion. Even Easter is tainted because it was actually supposed to be the Passover (Pesach) but was based off a Pagan holiday instead.

Despite the obvious there are many Christians who will defend Christmas to their dying breath.

I have nothing against celbrating Christmas I just choose not to go out of my way to get a tree and I dont intend on lying to my kids about a fat man and toys.

I don't intend to lie to my children over ancient myths in general, but they can keep Christmas precisely because it's all in good fun.

This has little to do with the fact that every Church will have some group activities scheduled around the Holiday, giving people a chance to meet and socialize.

If you look for my other comment in the page you will find that I believe there are opportunities to socialize during the holidays for everyone. I was just replying to the question about it being a religious holiday.

In my limited experience, Jewish communities tend to have stronger ties and identity than Christian ones.

I was reading this post and found it interesting enough to reply too. I am also a grandma so I know what pleasure it is. I had a son and a daughter, my son died when he was in his early 20's, he had one daughter that I do not get to see. I was blessed with a daughter that shared her kids with me, I always thanked her and I knew without a doubt I was very blessed. 14 and a half years I pretty much raised these kids, I didn't ask to but was more than happy to do so. Mom and dad were good parents until my son died then the second child was born and something happened. They weren't interested in the kids at all, they were consumed with computer games. Then came a third child, my daughter kept getting more and more violent toward me but as long as it was toward me we were fine I just wanted the kids to be safe. Long story short, after 14 and a half years of being with these kids daily, living with the girls the last 2 years my daughter turned into someone I didn't recognize anymore, she was violent toward me and the kids. We lived in the same house I was in the basement they were upstairs, I kept the payment up on the house and other bills because they wouldn't they took my money but didn't pay the bills. It got very dangerous with my daughter so I tried to help my grandkids. In the emotional state of mind I was in everything I did turned out backwards.My daughter lied of course to everyone said I was controlling and wouldn't let her raise her kids. I am sure she looked this stuff up on line. I fell apart because of what my daughter was saying. I ended up seeing a councellor trying to get back on track, dfs gave the kids back to mom and dad, mom and dad high tailed it out of the state with the kids leaving behind loans they took out and never repaid. With the help of DFS and other people my son in law and daughter were able to change the kids, immediately I hesitate to put this in here because I have been accused of so many things in order to make me look bad. Mom and dad left the state and I have tried to talk to the kids on pinterest but they told on me. Im guessing that's how they get their attention. I worrt about them daily how is this going to affect them, I have had the hardest time understanding how you could turn one human against another, the parents and others told the two girls that grandma didn't want them, they made the girls feel like I didn't love them and I never did. They have somehow convinced these two girls of this. I have not been allowed to see these kids in two years, this has actually been harder to deal with than my sons death. My sister is on GitHub here and she creates hacks to watch me constantly. The harrassment has been horrible. Its been very heartbreaking and eye opening. Parents can have mental problems but if they have never been arrested for drugs then they are good people. My heart has just been shattered, I used to sit along the bus route hoping to see their bus go by just to get the tiniest glimpse, I meant no harm I was just so homesick for them. Lately I have been needing to hear their voices. Im deemed as a bad grandma but I never lied I never did anything against my daughter I didn't even bye presents for them without asking. So the point of this post don't always assume grandma has done wrong just because mommy said she did, maybe mommy has some problems of her own. I feel so badly for any grandmother that has to be away from their grandkids right now. Have a merry Christmas and thanks for letting me post!

I really dislike emotional article titles like this.

There is a bond or there isn’t. Honestly, I feel like it’s better if we can ‘retire’ emotionally like we do from a job. Getting old is inevitable(for now)..when someone is in their 60s-70s, their children are probably in their middle age dealing with their own families and crises.

Children are insurance for our genetic material. Not financial or emotional crutches. Some might not feel that way, but I think having expectations and cultivating detachment as one grows older is a better attitude. Heck! I have been trying to cultivate detachment from the time I hit 35 and it’s a process. I hope to get it right by my 5th or 6th decade, at least!