December
When everybody is busy
December is loud about togetherness, which makes it the loneliest month for anybody outside the picture. The person with nowhere to go. The person on the shift that ruins the family day. The person doing arithmetic in a supermarket.
Nothing here is about the season as an occasion. It is about the specific ways this particular month is harder than the others, and what somebody standing nearby can actually do about it.
Find out who is on their own at Christmas
People will not volunteer that they have nowhere to go. The question has to be asked directly and early.
Bring something to whoever has the worst shift
Someone is working Sunday night, the holiday, or the 5am open. They are having a different day than you.
Leave something out for the refuse crew at Christmas
The crew that has taken your rubbish every week for a year passes your house in the dark in December.
Take the shift that ruins a family day
Someone on your team has small children, a religious holiday or a parent in hospital. The rota does not know that.
Know when their important days are
Everyone knows when Christmas is. Far fewer know when Eid, Diwali or Rosh Hashanah fall, or acknowledge them.
Ring at the same time every week
A call that arrives predictably becomes something to look forward to. A random one is just a call.
Invite the whole household, not just the one you know
Partners and teenagers of a newcomer are often more isolated than the person who has the job or the class.
Clear the path next door before your own
Snow and ice are a broken hip for an older neighbor and an inconvenience for you. The order you clear in matters.
Split the bill by what people can actually pay
Dividing equally is simple and quietly excludes whoever ordered the cheapest thing for a reason.
Plan something that is not built around drinking
People in recovery, pregnant, on medication or simply not drinking are excluded from most adult socialising by default.
Quietly pay for a child's kit
The boots, the instrument, the trip. Children drop out of things because of cost, and nobody is told why.
Visit the resident nobody comes for
Every care home has people who receive no visitors at all. Staff know exactly who they are.
Keep sending the birthday card after the divorce
Children lose half their extended family in a separation, usually without anyone deciding that should happen.
Check whether someone is on a social tariff
Discounted broadband, water and energy tariffs exist for low-income households and take-up is tiny.
Knock when you realize you have not seen someone
Curtains shut two days running, bins not out, post building up. Noticing is common. Knocking is rare and occasionally decisive.
Do one shopping run for three households
A single trip that collects three lists costs you ten extra minutes and saves three people an afternoon.
Do the bins for the house where it is getting hard
Wheeling a heavy bin down an icy path is one of the small tasks that quietly becomes dangerous with age.
Be the person who holds a spare key
Almost nobody has a local key-holder any more, which turns a lost key into a locksmith call and a few hundred pounds.
Offer your wifi when their internet goes down
For anyone working from home, an outage is a lost day of pay. A password shared over the fence gets it back.
Sit with whoever came on their own
At any gathering there is someone standing at the edge working out how soon they can leave.
Put back the bins that blew over
After a windy collection day the street is strewn with other people's bins and rubbish. It takes one person ten minutes.
Bring the trash cans back up
Sixty seconds of your afternoon, and someone comes home to one less thing.
Talk to the person on the door
Security staff stand in one place for twelve hours while thousands of people walk past without making eye contact.
Quietly cover the person who is skint
Someone stops coming out because they cannot afford it, and tells everyone they are busy instead.
Give money without making it a loan
A loan between friends creates a debt that outlasts the need. A gift, clearly stated, does not.
Notice who eats lunch at their desk every day
It is sometimes a preference and often the visible end of being outside every group in the building.
Quietly pay for the thing they canceled
Money is the first thing to go in a crisis, and the cancellations are small, private and cumulatively demoralising.
Let someone pay for you
Always insisting on paying can be a way of staying the one who gives. Accepting is its own kindness.
Pay the small invoice the day it arrives
Late payment is the main reason small suppliers fail. Paying on receipt costs you nothing and can matter enormously.
Take a child to meet an older neighbor
Both groups are more isolated than they were a generation ago, and the barrier is that neither can initiate.
Tell someone about money they are entitled to
Billions in benefits, reliefs and refunds go unclaimed every year, mostly by people who do not know they qualify.
Every one of these is in the library, with the reason it lands and how long it takes.