GIVEN that most Christmas TV advertisements depict a flurry of shopping, cooking, and cramming the house full of visitors, it is a sobering thought that more than 1.5 million people in the UK may be spending the festival on their own. A poll published earlier this month by Age UK suggested that 11 per cent of the over-65s would eat dinner alone on Christmas Day, and five per cent would not speak to anyone else for the entire day. The Government published its own figures last week. The Community Life Survey 2024/25: Loneliness and support networks found that seven per cent of adults reported that they “often” or “always” felt lonely. Closer examination reveals that levels of loneliness are strongly linked to socio-economic classification. Adults who had never worked or are long-term unemployed were more likely to report feeling lonely (13 per cent), compared with five per cent of adults from the higher managerial and professional occupations. There is a similar link to the index of multiple deprivation: 11 per cent of those who lived in the poorest areas of the country were likely to report feeling lonely often or always, compared with just four per cent of adults living in the wealthier areas.

Christians reported slightly lower levels of loneliness (five per cent) than the adult population as a whole, and marginally higher confidence in finding support if needed (96 per cent, compared with 94 per cent). Church, we might conclude, can help stave off the risk of isolation. These figures are a prompt to us all to look extra hard for those around us in particular need of hospitality at this time of year.