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As Christmas approaches, a number of newspapers are launching campaigns and charity appeals to tackle loneliness. One particular article mentioned two professionals, who volunteered for a scheme which pairs volunteers, with an elderly person who they call once a week for a chat. For many elderly people the phone call may be the only human contact they have all week. According to the 'Campaign to End Loneliness', more than half of Britons over the age of 75 live alone and half a million of them spend at least five or six days a week without seeing anyone. And it’s thought that the number of over 50’s experiencing loneliness is set to reach two million, in the next five years. Often we tend to think of loneliness as effecting those people who are in their homes all day, but, we are also missing those people of all ages, who are lonely in full sight of everybody. At a Church of England Conference, last year a survey suggested that only a third of young people feel they have someone who really believes In them. Immanuel Kant, writing in the age of enlightenment, reflected that our pursuit for autonomy, for freedom and individuality can come at the price of loneliness. Often we can concentrate on the big institutional aspects of Christmas, the concerts and parties. Or, we can concentrate on gift giving for those Individuals on our list, but as a result, we may overlook the bit in the middle (as it were), our shared humanity; our neighbour. In Christianity, the greatest commandment of all is to love God and love our neighbour, and although ‘loving our neighbour’ at times, can be inconvenient in the run up to Christmas, the rewards are often surprisingly great. The two volunteers who made the effort to put in a call once a week said they first volunteered as an act of charity, but soon gained more from the conversations with the elderly, than they had anticipated. One man said “when I come off the phone, I end up talking to my wife about the things I’ve been talking to this lady about,” and “I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to.” The first step might be, amidst all the business of Christmas, to stop and think about the person who isn’t busy, the person who may be isolated and lonely and then, to walk across the street and visit that neighbour and share in ‘that middle bit, our common humanity.