Single's greetings

Being unattached at Christmas can mean feeling lonely amid crowds of couples - or having the freedom to do your own thing. The choice is yours, writes Grace Wynne-Jones.

Many single people do not relish Christmas, but if you are tempted to regard the festivities as something you merely endure, read on. A singleton's Christmas can be an upbeat one.

One of the best ways to have a "cool yule" is to adjust your attitude. This does not mean you have to enter a happy clappy land of fake cheer. However, it's worth acknowledging that being single at Christmas has its advantages. You don't have to visit in-laws, and being free of the need to create the "perfect" Christmas for someone else can lead to an array of possibilities.

Families come in many forms these days and can include cherished friends. Of course some folks haven't caught up with this, but brush off insensitive remarks as lightly as you can.

"At some point in your life you need to give up worrying about what other people think of you and that includes Christmas Day," life coach Fiona Harrold says firmly.

Psychologist Anne-Marie McMahon points out that many people would feel fine about being single at Christmas if they weren't bombarded with images of cosy couples and children sitting around the television. But, she adds, if you're happy enough to be single on the other 364 days of the year, why should Christmas be the exception?

Harrold will spend this Christmas skiing in Val d'Isère with her teenage son. She is unmarried and says a singleton's Christmas can be liberating.

"You can decide whether to spend it traditionally with your family or go anywhere you choose. Wherever you go you are likely to find interesting and like-minded people. Don't be put off by last-minute booking. Do your research and then go for it." And if you want to do some reading while you're away you could pop Harrold's book, The 7 Rules of Success, into your suitcase.

Going away doesn't necessarily mean missing Christmas dinner with the family. "You could leave on St Stephen's Day," Harrold suggests.

If you spend Christmas Day with relatives, "do it with the right attitude and make every effort to make it a great day for everyone". She adds, "I've had Christmases on my own and I learned a lot from them. The day comes and goes and you get through it and it's not dreadful. It's easy to think 'Oh God, everybody else is having the perfect Christmas Day and I'm not', whereas yours may be a whole lot better than other people's."

Of course people are single at Christmas for many reasons including bereavement or divorce or the loss of a long-term partner. If you've lost someone you love, feelings of grief are natural and McMahon believes that remembering Christmas is just one day can help.

Have the kind of Christmas you feel you need rather than the one you feel you "should" have. Also, singles who are carers have every right to ask for support.

Through her work as a psychologist McMahon has met many single people who have no siblings and no close relatives nearby.

But as Harrold points out there is often "no need to be alone. All you need is to put organisation and forethought into it".

One option would be to swan around the Italian lakes. An Irish tour-operator called The Travel Department specialises in escorted tours that attract many married and single people. Christmas guests stay in a hotel with an open fire, a bar, common rooms to chat in and music in the evening. The week-long tours leave at 7.30pm on December 20th, 21st, and there's also a Christmas tour to China.

The average age tends to be 55 but there are younger and older people too. Prices start at €699 for a week including all evening meals and excursions to Venice and Verona and a tour of the lakes. For more information log onto www.thetraveldepartment.ie.

Another Christmas option is to volunteer and serve Christmas dinners to the homeless. However, the numbers wanting to volunteer on Christmas day "tends to be much higher than any other day of the year" reveals Stuart Garland, chief executive of Volunteering Ireland.

Even so it's worth your while logging on to www.volunteeringireland.ie for details. If you go to the RDS Simmonscourt entrance in Dublin at 9.30am on Christmas Day you can help provide dinners for "anyone who needs to be fed". It's run by the Knights of St Columbanus who also operate in Belfast and Cork. For details tel: 01-6761835. People who need a hot meal should turn up after 11.30am.

Lucille McDonald is founder of a singles social group in south Dublin. The group holds monthly meetings and organises many social activities and you can get on the grapevine by e-mailing maturesingles@netscape.net.

McDonald describes herself as a "mature" single, a term she uses for singles who are 35 or older. "For some singles in Ireland Christmas is the only time when their singleness stands out like a sore thumb," she says. She has lived in the US and Canada and says compared with those countries Ireland is very couple and family oriented, particularly at Christmas.

Many mature singles she knows "go abroad. . . and prefer to skip the whole thing". But she points out that "you can create your own Christmas by focusing on the people who have enhanced your life in the past 12 months and the spiritual, social and community aspects of Christmas that are important to you".

She adds that Christmas for "re-entry singles", or people whose relationships have terminated in the past year, can be challenging. "It is very important for them to identify and participate in the Christmas activities that are important to them," she advises.

Having something to look forward to can also add to the Christmas sparkle. Chrysalis Centre in Co Wicklow will be offering a residential four-day post-Christmas chill-out retreat from December 28th to January 1st, which costs €460. See details at www.chrysalis.ie. Another uplifting option is to visit the Dzogchen Beara Buddhist Retreat Centre in west Cork. It will be running a New Year retreat from December 28th to January 1st. The retreat costs €235 including meals. See details at www.dzogchenbeara.org.

So, whether you go abroad or stay at home, celebrate with family or chill out on your own - with the right spirit, you can still "have yourself a merry little Christmas".