You may not notice it, but at this time of year there is a question that runs around like a headless turkey: “How many people are you having over for Christmas lunch?” Those of us who do not want to be judged for the lack of dinner plates around the festive table, usually answer: “Oh, we’re having a quiet one.”

But, just as asking what you do for a living, it’s a question that leaves you open to judgment. It is keeping up with the Joneses gone festive, and at heart it is about the image of an idealised, perfect Christmas.

It is no surprise that so many of us feel like failures over Christmas, when adverts show only one way to celebrate: a huge number of happy family members around the table. If this doesn’t resemble your Christmas Day, you are made to feel you haven’t done enough; that you are not enough. But Christmas should belong to those who want it and feel it, however they choose to celebrate, not just to those who fit the glossy advertising images.

In 2015 and 2016, I spent Christmas Day with very few people. In previous years, I have spent it with a plethora of family members. The decision to go low-key was a conscious one; my mother died from cancer at the age of 62 on Christmas Eve 2014, so that period now is a sombre affair; it is more In the Bleak Midwinter than Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. I didn’t want to be pressured into having the Christmas I had always had, when, for me, it had changed irrevocably. But I felt uncomfortable telling people about my decision. So I lied.

I wasn’t quite sure why I was doing this, it was uncharacteristic of me; so I began to deconstruct why I felt the need to hide the truth.

Those of us who do not celebrate according to the idea of the perfect Christmas are turned into a species of voyeur, gazing into homes where it is being done “properly” via TV adverts, or hearing others boast how many people are coming to dinner.

It is no fun being the person who is always looking in – as if our homes are those Father Christmas forgot to visit. Christmas Day has become, at least in marketing terms, some kind of private members’ club.

Throughout our lives, Christmas will be mercurial; it will change with our personal circumstances: the death of a family member, a divorce, a family falling-out. As we get older and our lives get more complicated, more of us will find our Christmases do not fit the mould and be made to feel our way of spending the day is a poor relation to the real thing.

Problem pages, daytime TV and radio phone-ins always cover the same topic: how to survive Christmas with the family. For the Samaritans, this is one of the busiest times of the year.

A friend was a nurse working on Christmas Day. She described it as a different but spirited Christmas. She and a colleague swapped gifts and she went home alone to eat a Pret a Manger turkey sandwich and watch The Snowman. To some, this may sound like a sorry tale, but even now, after having two children, she remembers that particular Christmas fondly.

Perhaps someone will be eating a shop-bought turkey sandwich. It’s not an 'alternative' Christmas – it’s their Christmas

Christmas often feels as if it is exclusive, that it can only belong to families. And then there are those who would like you to believe it is only for children. Let’s be clear. It is the commercialisation of Christmas that is geared towards children. Christmas itself, the birth of Christ,, and goodwill to all, hardly sounds like a notion full of childish merriment.

Christmas should be a simple thing, but we have overcomplicated it. Some will spend the day helping out with a homeless charity; others will spend it quietly with nothing but their thoughts. And perhaps a nurse, somewhere, will be eating a shop-bought turkey sandwich. It is not an “alternative” Christmas – it is their Christmas.

I can’t help but think if we acknowledged all variants of the big day, making it feel inclusive instead of exclusive, more of us would be less fearful of it. We should embrace the diverse realities of Christmas: the couple who are having a happy child-free day, the pensioner eating lunch with the next-door neighbour, or the bachelor who chooses to spend the day alone with his dog.

Let us be free to paint our own picture of Christmas. It belongs to me, you and anyone else who feels the spirit of it. It may not always be an altogether happy occasion, but I have come to realise, as an adult, that the anticipation does not lie in whether it is going to be a white Christmas, but in the acceptance that the day itself can contain all four seasons.