I am a childless (not by choice) 66-year-old and I can sympathise with the views expressed in Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s article (If you are childless, and not by choice, how do you get through Christmas?, 15 December), but I am finding Christmas more difficult now that I and my husband have reached grandparent age.
When I was in my 40s we had lots of contact with siblings and their children, but now, a generation on, not so much. Second choice over “real” grandparents for childminding. No adult nieces and nephews and their children on Christmas Day, as they are, rightly, visiting their own parents. Always feeling you are on the periphery of the nuclear family circles.
We love our nieces and nephews dearly, but I feel that most of our family think we have “got over” the childlessness. It’s not true – it never goes away, and this time of year just emphasises what we have missed. So please, younger generation, be kind to the childless oldies this Christmas.
Jill Eastlake
Haltwhistle, Northumberland
• Our vicar’s response to the discomfort our choir and congregation felt about singing O Little Town of Bethlehem this year (Letters, 18 December) was simple yet effective. She asked us to stand at the first verse, but remain silent for the opening four lines while the organist played. We started singing at the fifth line: “Yet in thy dark streets shineth.”
Felicity Pattenden
Hindon and Chilmark choir, Wiltshire
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