I set out two days before Christmas
To beach-walk the holidays through,
Bunking with twenty-three strangers
Who relished to be alone too.
Happy with nature’s fine company,
No need for the trappings of home,
We twenty-four souls would be grateful –
Together by being on our own.
Well, nothing is quite as expected:
Twenty-three souls having fun
Belonged each to couples and families;
I, the sole party of one.
I left on the day before Christmas
Not onward, but back to the start
To friends, Swiss and English and German
Prior with whom I did part.
A Christmas Day dinner of pasta
Instead of dried fruit on its own,
And a table of young solo travelers
Who thought they’d spend Christmas alone.
***
Merry Christmas, wherever you are, whoever you’re with. – D.
I'm David and Raptitude is a street-level look at the human experience -- what makes human beings do what they do, and what that means in real life.
I write about how to make sense of the earth's most ridiculous animal, how to get better at being one of them, and how only those two things can save the world. 
Wow, this was so inspiring, David! Thank you!