Why kindness is the best Christmas gift – Jayne Dowle

You could be wondering what to do with all those Secret Santa gifts you bought and that huge turkey catering for 12.

Here’s some suggestions. Take those gifts to the nearest children’s Christmas gift appeal, there’s still time. Donate toiletries and treats to a refuge. And find a homeless charity in desperate need of socks, hats and scarves.

Whilst you’re there, you might ask the staff if they need a hand. I’m told there is a desperate shortage of volunteers this year across the charitable sector.

Fear of Omicron and positive cases of all strains of coronavirus are devastating efforts to help those far less fortunate than ourselves. Believe me, if you’re feeling like all the spirit has been 
knocked out of Christmas along with your stuffing, offering support to others is a sure-fire way to gain a little perspective.

Speaking of stuffing, there will be people in your neighbourhood who can only dream of a decent Christmas dinner. Make it your job to turn this on its head.

Almost every supermarket has a food bank. If you’ve been stockpiling for Christmas since September and your cupboards are bursting at the seams, fill some bags and give away everything you aren’t going to need now that all the cousins and Great Aunt Mavis have confined themselves to barracks.

We’ve been doing such a weekly sweep of our food stocks for months now. Every Saturday, anything superfluous to requirements and taking up space is dropped off at the Co-op.

And if your neighbours live alone, or are unable to see family or friends, why not offer to make their Christmas dinner for them? The success of this last suggestion will of course depend on your level of cooking expertise and organisational skills.

Be prepared for a polite decline, but it’s not hard, believe me. I have friends who even before the pandemic, delivered “meals on wheels” to isolated or ill family members and friends every Sunday. He cooks, she drives.

At the very least, however, ask neighbours stuck indoors if there is anything they need from the shops. Cards and parcels posting? Decorations getting down from the loft (respecting mutual views on social distancing of course)? Even a smile and a wave as you walk past their window makes a lonely person feel that they exist, that they matter, that someone noticed.

I say hello to every face I see on my evening walk with the dog, but we take special care to smile if we choose the route past the bungalows where the elderly people live.

Two months into the pandemic, in May 2020, 10 million UK adults (around one in five) told researchers that they were volunteering in their community; most said that they would carry on “after the lockdown ends”.

Well, we all know how that turned out. What promised to be a few short months of hunkering down has turned into almost two long years of on and off lockdowns and huge changes in social behaviour. This is the time to remember the good things about helping others.

Whatever you do, I can guarantee you won’t be feeling half as sad and cast adrift as the hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who admit that they feel lonely. According to the Campaign to End Loneliness, it is estimated that about 20 per cent of the older population feel “mildly lonely” and another 10 per cent admit that they are “intensely lonely”.

And this was before Omicron swept through the UK, turning our plans upside down and politicians and scientists, one way or another, urged us to scale back 
our social interactions and mix with others only on a very modest scale. And it is not to mention younger people. Lockdowns, school closures and restrictions on social and communal activities have left them trapped in their bedrooms.

At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the Mental Health Foundation asked under-18s about their major concerns. Their fears were isolation and loneliness. As the first lockdown progressed, 35 per cent said they felt lonely “often” or “most” of the time, despite spending an average of three hours on social media. What better way to raise young people’s spirits than to get them to help others?

It can all seem so overwhelming, but even if you are housebound yourself, there is something you can do. Pick up the phone and call someone else. It doesn’t have to be a long call, but make it meaningful.

Or ignore the grinches who say Christmas cards are old hat, and send some. Christmas cards can benefit charities. You can even do this online through charity e-cards. Or send flowers or ideally, a plant, which with luck, will thrive into what will hopefully become a far kinder New Year.

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