Christmas, we’re told, is about togetherness.
About full tables, laughter, shared jokes that resurface every year like old friends.
It’s about smiles for the camera, neatly framed and ready to be posted, shared, or tucked inside an envelope with a stamp and a seasonal message.
But that’s only part of the story.
Because for many people, Christmas is also marked by what isn’t there.
The chair left empty.
The conversation that no longer happens.
The familiar voice that used to arrive before the pudding did.
These are the details that never quite fit on a card, no matter how much glitter you add.
There are families navigating strained relationships, polite silences, or carefully managed distances.
Others are carrying private grief-recent or long-settled-that becomes sharper at this time of year.
Some are simply exhausted, worn thin by a year that demanded more than they had to give.
None of this is unusual.
It’s just rarely spoken about.
What’s striking is how many of these stories are shared quietly.
On a walk rather than at the table. In the kitchen rather than the living room. In moments that happen once the formalities are over and the performance of Christmas has relaxed its grip.
When the noise dies down, the truth often creeps in.
And those quieter stories matter.
They matter because they remind us that life is rarely neat.
That joy and sadness often coexist.
That resilience doesn’t always look brave or loud-sometimes it looks like turning up anyway, or choosing not to. Sometimes it looks like getting through the day and allowing that to be enough.
This is where my own work brushes up against these moments, albeit gently and at a distance. At the heart of what I do-whether helping someone shape their life story, supporting a book that’s taken years to find its voice, or simply listening before a single word is written-is my fervent and unbreakable belief that untold stories still count.
That not every experience needs polishing before it’s worthy of being heard.
Christmas has a way of amplifying this truth. It exposes the gap between the public version of our lives and the private one. And if nothing else, it offers a reminder that the stories we don’t broadcast are often the ones that shape us most.
So if this season feels complicated, you’re not alone.
If your Christmas doesn’t look like the pictures, that doesn’t mean it’s lacking meaning.
Sometimes the most honest stories are the ones we hold quietly, without captions, without cards…and without the need to explain them at all.
A very Happy Christmas to everyone who reads my blogs & my books and supports my work.
You are as treasured as any colourfully wrapped gift that lurks under a Christmas tree…
