This week in The Southern Star we learn of the marvellous work being done by the Bridge Street Café in Bantry, with a Christmas Eve potluck for anyone who lives alone and would like to gather with others to celebrate at this time of year. We are reminded too that the Samaritans, with a centre in Clonakilty, are just a phone call away for absolutely anyone who needs them.

These services are wonderful, and a welcome acknowledgement that the screen-version of Christmas is quite far from the reality of many at this time of year.

Screens and magazines are guilty of portraying a table laden with candles and food, surrounded by family clinking glasses. They don’t show the reality of standing in a kitchen in your dressing gown at 5am putting a cold turkey into the oven, or the grim reality of cleaning a pile of oven trays and plates after three glasses of cheap wine, while you learn that the ‘good ware’ is not dishwasher-safe.

These are small problems. Many people in Ireland will spend the morning alone because circumstance – immigration, death, or simply time – has taken everyone from them. Others will spend it alone out of self-preservation, making the brave decision to spend the day solo rather than with troubled family, or abusive partners. What is certain is that, if you are alone, you are not the only one.

It is a sobering but grateful fact that in life, we are rarely the only ones suffering. We might not see it, and TV and film definitely won’t show it, but behind doors there are innumerable souls spending the day alone. Sometimes they will be alone, even when surrounded by other people.

Services like the Bridge Street Café are invaluable not just for hosting a day like Christmas Eve’s Potluck, but for letting the world know they exist. Some people will read the article and think they don’t belong, or it’s not for them, or they might plan to go but next Wednesday they’ll change their mind and stay at home. However, knowing that there is a space and a place, filled with food and like-minded people makes the difference and it lets every person know that what they see on TV, the myth of the happy joyous family around the heaving Christmas table, is not the only reality.

Just imagine, it could be you

The Breffni County is famous for its lakes, and for the (alleged) habit of peeling an orange in one’s pocket, but this week it is home to the lucky winner of €17 million in the Euromillions lottery. This time of year it’s nice to think, what would you do? What would you do, right this minute, if you checked the numbers and you found out that your life would change forever?

Most of us would, one suspects, sign the ticket immediately and put it in your sock. Imagine losing it; you’d have to assume God intervened for your own good. St Anthony would never be so popular than if you lost a winning lottery ticket.

Would we book a hotel and leave the house immediately, or turn the heating up full blast luxuriating in no fear of the electricity bill? Ironically, as the ticket was bought in a Lidl, would the discount supermarket now lose a customer as the winner now lives the dream and buys all-organic, seasonal Irish produce from a locally-owned shop? Feck it, you could hire someone else to actually do the shopping and cooking.

Some people (men) say they’d splash out on a nice car, but the reality is most of us like our wheels and for all the talk, we’d be slow to get an Alfa Romeo. Imagine reversing it up a boreen when you meet the milk lorry unexpectedly.

As the pugilist Joe Louis noted, Money can’t buy happiness, but it does quiet the nerves. Best of luck to that Cavan soul. It’ll buy a lot of oranges.