Broke and alone in the UK this Christmas? How to get back the festive spirit

YOU have no money and you are stuck in London over Christmas. In fact, stuck in the UK opting to make cash during the festive season of Jesus whilst your lovely friends indulge in European Christmas markets.

Australian Kerryn Proctor says Christmas can be a difficult time for an Antipodean living in London because it is the time when homesickness can kick in.

“Your family are on the other side of the world and unless you pay an extortionate airfare to fly back to see them, you realise you are going to spend Christmas alone.”

Do not fret. There are plenty of options and none of them include sharing cask wine with hobos in Hyde Park while your siblings upload smiling Christmas photos to Facebook from a beach somewhere in Australia.

1. Mrs Proctor says” “You can remind the Brits we are practically cousins and find a nice welcoming family to adopt you for a few days,
2. Find a travelling tour and go and explore the UK.
3. Visit the Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park – see the new ice sculpture attraction, go on the giant wheel and have a mulled wine in the Bavarian village.
4. Go ice skating, says Mrs Proctor. “The best advice I was ever given for ice skating was by an emergency nurse who assured me that if I drank loads of mulled wine it would make me less likely to hurt myself if I fell over.”
5. Make Christmas Dinner for yourself. This allows for many amazing Boxing Day left over sandwiches, which in my opinion is the only reason why we still celebrate Christmas. Also make mulled wine. It is delicious and contains fruit, which means nutrition — trust me, I am a trained chef.
6. High tea in one of London’s five star hotels.
7. Go shopping on Oxford Street — this helps if your family has sent you nothing but Home and Away DVDs. You can send those DVDs to me.
8. Volunteer at a soup kitchen — rewarding and full of stories.
9. A mid-winter dip in the Thames — have mulled wine afterwards.

Not quite making the recommended top ten, I’m planning a scaffold climb with a touch of parkour with friends from work, with a possible visit to the local A and E to top it off.

Vote now in our poll of the best Aussie Christmas songs for 2012.