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13 Surprisingly Fun Things To Do At Christmas If You Can't Celebrate With Family This Year

things to do lonely christmas family
How To Celebrate Christmas Without FamilyRecep Buyukguzel - Getty Images

The holidays can be tough. For every Brady Bunch-type family who began making elaborate plans six months ago, there's many more who find the whole thing extremely overwhelming.

If you’ve just suffered a loss, for example, or if you’re unable to be around family – being alone for Christmas can be a pretty tough time. Others might have work obligations, family disputes or simply a lack of funds to hop on a flight home.

If this sounds like you, the most important thing to remember is that you should be patient and gentle with yourself. If you’re feeling low or not in the mood to celebrate, that's absolutely fine. Just because it’s Christmas, doesn’t mean everything in your life has to be wrapped up in a tightly knotted bow and sparkling under candlelight.

In research conducted by the mental health charity MIND in 2017, 45% of people aged between 18 and 24 said they'd be too embarrassed to admit that they’re lonely at Christmas, two in five people admitted they'd be less likely to talk about their mental health to loved ones at Christmas time, and one in five feel like they have nowhere to turn for support.

Woman at Christmas
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With many of us facing a deluge of perfectly-curated Instagram feeds of seemingly idyllic Christmases, it's important to remember that December 25 is just one of hundreds of days in the year and no matter where you are in the world, there's always support out there.

To help, we've rounded up a list of surprisingly helpful activities you can do when spending time with family isn't an option.

1) Volunteer with YES Group London Basket Brigade

If you can’t bare the thought of others not having food on the table come Christmas time, now is the time to offer your help. The London Basket Brigade’s mission is to make up baskets – otherwise known as ‘Hampers of Happiness’.

This charity idea came about over 40 years ago and sees thousands of volunteers coming together in around the world to provide baskets of food and household items for an estimated 4 million people by December 23.

Find out more information here. You can also donate here. Just £15 feeds a family of four.

2) Offer up your night to the Hackney Winter Night Shelter

Open from November to March each year, Hackney Winter Night Shelter offers a bed for the night and a hot meal for people who would otherwise be sleeping rough. Without its team of volunteers, it simply would be unable to run.

Young woman sleeping at bus shelter
unknown - Getty Images

During the night, a volunteer’s first shift will see them preparing the venue, while the second will involve cooking and servicing dinner and offering guests conversation in a friendly environment. ‘Some then stay overnight as part of our overnight shift, and then a final shift arrives first thing to serve breakfast or help clear up,’ the organisation's website explains.

Find out how to volunteer here or email volunteer@hwns.org.uk.

3) Volunteer in Calais

Care4Calais is a French/UK registered charity that works to support refugees sleeping rough in Calais, directly with a focus on providing fresh meals, warm clothing, heating and social interaction.

With mobile English workshops, sports days and art and music initiatives, to helping search for refugees in need of help, visiting those in detention, and organising the warehouse on site, your efforts are in need more than ever this Christmas.

If you believe every human has the right to be treated in a fair and dignified way, a volunteering trip to Calais is most certainly for you this Christmas.

Alternatively, you can donate your coat to those in camps in Calais and find your nearest donation drop off point here.

Click here to find out more.

4) Join Goodgym

Over a million older people in the UK are always or often lonely and many go for months without seeing friends or family. And that's where GoodGym is here to help.

GoodGym is a weekly running club that combines regular exercise with helping the community. Whether it's jogging to plant trees for a local park and shifting earth for a community gardening project to sorting cans for a food bank, the charity works hard to improve the quality of life for the elderly by ensuring volunteering fits easily into busy schedules.

A total of 20,558 Goodgymers have already helped over 38,241 people with 304,182 tasks.

With the project now set up in 59 areas across the UK, there's no excuse not to don your trainers this Christmas and do some good in your community. After all, what better way to work off all that stuffing, right?

Sign up to GoodGym here.

5) Find a 'friend'

Via initiatives such as North London Cares, South London Cares and Manchester Cares, friendship matching scheme 'Love Thy Neighbour' joins men and women aged 65 and over with younger neighbours in the area to promote spending a little time one-to-one time together.

Young Couple Embrace Each Other Lovingly At Barbecue Meetup
Franziska & Tom Werner - Getty Images

Matches are encouraged to catch up over a cup of tea or a walk once a week to develop a mutual friendship over time and help elderly neighbours who may struggle to get out of the house.

If you'd like to get involved, sign up to the programme here via its referral form or visit the organisation's contact page.

6) Volunteer in a charity shop

In the lead up to Christmas, many charity shops struggle to cope with the extra work and demands of the festive shopping period.

So, if you have an afternoon, evening or even just two hours free in your diary, why not book yourself in for a shift at a charity shop this winter?

Second hand clothes for sale
Photograph © Jon Cartwright - Getty Images

Join the 22,000 or so volunteers who help out at Oxfam shops or find a role at Cancer Research in one of their 550+ shops around the UK.

7) Give out food at a foodbank

In the UK, more than 14 million people are living in poverty – including 4.5 million children.

Between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, food banks in the Trussell Trust’s UK wide network provided a staggering 1.9 million food supplies to people in crisis, which marked an 18% increase on the previous year and during the coronavirus pandemic food banks have seen need rise even further.

Give something back this year and help out a your nearest foodbank, whether it's donating produce, sorting, or distributing food to those in need.

Find your local food bank and find out how you can help this Christmas by clicking here.

8) Flex your cooking muscles with Foodcycle

Food cycle is a national charity that builds communities through surplus food, volunteers and spare kitchen spaces.

With food projects from Bath to Birmingham, the project aims to cook up tasty meals for people in need of a hot dinner and friendship. Each week, it serves over 750 three-course meals and gives away over 150 reusable containers for guests to take home. This week alone its volunteers have cooked 62 community meals.

Generous people helping to poor people
mixetto - Getty Images

Whether you want to become a team co-ordinator or a cooking leader running weekly cooking sessions with volunteers, there's no better way to show off your cooking skills, motivate others and help your community.

Find you closest FoodCycle project here.

9) Couchsurf in a new city

If you're travelling over the Christmas period or have recently moved abroad and are struggling with homesickness and finding new friends, take yourself on an adventure this festive season by couchsurfing.

A few days off over Christmas poses the perfect - and cheap - opportunity to sign up to Couchsurf, where travellers connect with each other to provide free accommodation to global wanderers.

Three female friends taking smartphone selfie at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
Kate Ballis - Getty Images

Whether it's two days in Barcelona, a night's stay in Rome, or a quick trip to Paris for the weekend, you never know, you might even bag yourself a free Christmas dinner with a host's family!

Sign up to the scheme here.

10) Become a house sitter

You know that Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet Christmas film, The Holiday? Where the two women can't stand the thought of being lonely at home during the holidays and decide to swap houses (and lives) for two weeks?

Well, you can do the same - just without Jude Law - by signing up to House Sitters UK. You look after a home, and an owner's pet, over Christmas.

Blonde woman using smartphone at home
Westend61 - Getty Images

House sitting is by far the cheapest way to find accommodation, have an authentic holiday experience and indulge in a love of animals all at the same time. All you have to do is search through houses available online and contact the owners.

Finally, an opportunity to take that cosy three-day break in Cork or Edinburgh, for free!

Sign up to become a house sitter here.

11) Book a Christmas shift

High street shops often offer higher wages or 'double pay' during the festive period to recruit more members of staff to meet shopping demands.

If the thought of spending Christmas Eve, Boxing Day or the entirety of the holidays alone at home has you worried, organise a few shifts at a local high street shop for additional pay, an opportunity to eye-up items in the sales in advance and work with like-minded millennials.

Girls carrying shopping bags
RgStudio - Getty Images

Being paid to spend the day in Zara all day? Sign us up.

Contact individual stores for more details.

12) Invite friends over for dinner

As we all know, not everyone celebrates Christmas, so why not send a Facebook or Whatsapp message to friends to find out who is free over the holidays and would like to spend time together - be it at home, in the local pub or at a restaurant?

13) Volunteer with Crisis

In November 2022 the National homelessness charity, Crisis, issued an urgent appeal for volunteers to help with a wide range of roles across London throughout the festive season and into January.

This year, Crisis at Christmas will be offering hotel accommodation in London to more than 400 people who otherwise would be sleeping rough, and is opening four separate day centres for people in insecure, temporary accommodation where they’ll be able to get health checks, receive hot food and toiletries.

alone christmas
Richard Newstead - Getty Images

Crisis is need of volunteers with a variety of skills, from hairdressers, barbers, and doctors to physiotherapists, opticians, podiatrists and more, as well as those who will be able to provide support in January and during night shifts.

To volunteer with Crisis this Christmas register now via crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/


Regardless or how you feel about Christmas, we can all agree it's the perfect time to reconnect with old pals and celebrate having time off, even it's just to eat to our heart's content, guilt-free.

However, if - for whatever reason - you're feeling lonely, sad or just need someone to talk to this festive season, remember that help is close at hand.

Here are a list of helplines available (times may vary) :

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