Christmas Archives - Gateway Women

[FREE: REGISTER NOW] Why do we need role models of childless elderwomen? Join us for our December 2023 ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwoman’ session, Wed 20th December, 8pm

November 2, 2023 Jody Day 0

Register free at this link; the recording will be sent out the next day to all who register. The chat is moderated and is usually pretty lively too! Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen is a series of quarterly webinars I host with an inspiring panel of childless elderwomen ranging from their late 50s to their mid-70s (I am fifty-nine-and-a-half!) The webinars are public, free, open to all and you are very welcome to join us whatever age you are – we have noticed that people from their 20s to their 80s usually attend. We meet each Equinox and Solstice for […]

[FREE: REGISTER NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Reclaiming Your Childless Festive Season!’ – Sat 8th December, 7pm UK (and recorded)

October 27, 2023 Jody Day 0

Join us for this free Gateway Women Masterclass as our gift to help you reclaim your childless festive season on Friday 8th December 7-8pm GMT UK time and recorded too. Click here to register to attend live and/or to receive a link to watch the replay the next day. Christmas and the December holiday season can be some of the most challenging times of the year for those of us who are childless-not-by-choice. It can made even harder as our consumer society uses images and ideas of ‘togetherness’ and ‘happy families’ as relentless marketing tools to sell us a fantasy […]

Revolutionizing Your Single Holidays (aka ‘the festive season’), a free GW Masterclass with Jody Day, Shani Silver, Sasha Cagen, Yael Wolfe & Nicola Slawson

December 1, 2022 Jody Day 0

The holiday season, from Halloween right through till New Year’s Eve, can sometimes feel like a special kind of hell for single women without children… but what if they didn’t have to be? What if you could craft your own way to celebrate in a way that works for you? If you’d like to explore this radical thought then watch this amazing webinar, filmed in 2021 with me, Jody Day, and my four arse-kicking, taboo-busting single writers, podcasters, artists, coaches and thinkers for this amazing Gateway Women Masterclass on ‘Revolutionizing the Single Holidays’. Recorded live on Saturday 11th December 2021. […]

[Watch now] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Renewal’: Solstice 2022: Wed 21 December

October 26, 2022 Jody Day 0

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice on/around 21 December is the shortest night of the year and is celebrated as such by our ancestors. They knew it presaged the return of longer days and shorter nights, the return of the ‘Sun/Son’. It was a festival of rebirth and renewal at the promise of another year of warmth and food to come. This conversatation was recorded live on 21 December 2022 and you can watch it here now. You can watch past sessions here and sign up to Jody’s mailing list for future sessions here. Filmed on Wednesday 21 December […]

Reflect and Renew: navigating the sometimes tricky ‘twixmas’ week as a childless woman

December 27, 2021 Jody Day 0

Amongst the myriad exhortations to move on from Christmas like you haven’t just survived the toughest day in the childless calendar, and throw yourself into the coming new year with gusto, we often ride roughshod over some of the less glamourous feelings that arise at this time of year. Feelings of loss, sadness, grief, wistfulness, regret and confusion which are so much a part of every life, and so often close to the surface for those of us living the life unexpected. If this resonates with you, I thought you might find this recording of my Reflect & Renew webinar which […]

Jody Day interviewed by Sally Garozzo for ‘The Menopause Mindset’ podcast [Dec 2021]: being childless at Christmas; dismantling negative stereotypes; fetishization of motherhood and the childless menopause!

December 16, 2021 Jody Day 0

In this episode of Sally Garozzo’s podcast ‘The Menopause Mindset’, Jody Day covers: Being childless at Christmas Childlessness and childfree as a spectrum Disenfranchised grief The healing power of grief Having a language to describe your experience Unconscious bias towards parenting (pronatalism) Dismantling the stereotypes of childlessness women (Cruella De Vil) Yearning for motherhood as a last-ditch attempt to feel normal Reclaiming the childless life (or not) The fetishization of motherhood The cultural fear of childless women (the deviant) Ageing without children To listen, go to: sallygarozzo.com/podcast and click on ‘Episode 84’ or search ‘The Menopause Mindset’ wherever you get […]

Watch ‘Solstice Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’: Recorded 21st Dec 2021

December 9, 2021 Jody Day 0

RECORDED LIVE ON ZOOM ON TUESDAY 21ST DECEMBER 2021 Since we first came together for World Childless Week in 2020, the #NomoCrones (nomo = not-mother & crone is not an insult!) have been meeting each solstice and equinox for a series of informal online zoom gatherings called ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen‘. To find out more about our ‘Gateway Elderwomen’ project and to watch previous sessions, click here. To sign up to our mailing list to make sure you don’t miss the session planned for March 2022, click here. December Solstice 2021: ‘Spiritual Malnutrition’ For December 2021’s Solstice Session, we’re […]

Reclaiming the Childless Holidays with Jody Day, Karin Enfield, Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle & Sophia Andeh – recording now available

November 18, 2021 Jody Day 0

We know that for those of us who are involuntarily childless, this time of year can be especially tough with our consumer society’s relentless focus on ‘togetherness’ and ‘happy families’. From Halloween through to New Year’s Eve, there seem to be so many different days in the holiday calendar, whatever your faith, including if you have none, that can be complex for us. Our advice: plan ahead. Whatever your partnership or familial situation, we hope that during this webinar we were able to offer you some ideas and comfort on how to manage YOUR childless holidays. ‘Reclaiming the Childless Holidays’ was […]

To the Childless Woman at Christmas – I See You

December 17, 2020 Jody Day 16

I see you sitting at home muting the rolling TV ads of ridiculously happy, rumbunctious, multi-generational families hilariously solving some Christmas dilemma in under 2 minutes. And yet somehow no one shouts at anyone else and the scene where someone makes painful assumptions about your life because you don’t have kids is missing. And no one asks you if you’d mind sleeping in a tent this year… I see you scrolling through Facebook – like seductively picking an emotional scab – and gasping as your last sister-in-childlessness scanbushes you (and the whole social media universe) with a surprise sonogram. A […]

What advice would you give to your younger childless self? And other brilliant questions from Helen Gallagher on episode 1 of her ‘Happy and Childless Podcast’ (December 2020)

December 8, 2020 Jody Day 0

In this interview from Decemember 2020 with British podcaster, Helen Gallagher, for her brand new ‘Happy and Childless’ podcast, we discussed what it takes to be ‘happy’ with your life when childlessness wasn’t the plan. Helen is 43 and near the beginning of her journey of acceptance, which made for some poignant discussions and reflections back to that time in my life too. You can listen to the full interview (43-mins) by searching ‘Happy and Childless’ on Apple Podcasts and/or read the full transcript below. In our interview, we discuss how I couldn’t find support when I was looking for […]

Guest Blog: Reflections from a Childless Christian on the first Sunday of Advent

November 29, 2020 Jody Day 11

A guest blog by a Christian member of Gateway Women’s Childless Christian’s group – one of 35+ specialised subgroups in Gateway Women’s private online community. Happy New Year! Have I got my dates in a muddle – surely it isn’t 2021 just yet? Well no… it’s new year but in the Christian church calendar: Advent Sunday. Today starts the season of Advent – candles and calendars and yes, Christmas is under four weeks away. Advent is a time of preparation and countdown to celebrate the birth of the ultimate miracle baby, Jesus Christ, and all the trappings of comfort and […]

12 Books of Christmas: for your childless friend (or yourself!)

December 7, 2019 Jody Day 2

Reading for pleasure is one of those things that can take a B-I-G hit during grief and, even though I am no longer grieving, it’s taken me several years to really get my reading mojo back. That, combined with my reduced attention span (thank you screens) means it can take a lot more to get me to stay with a book these days! I found my way back into my love of reading through listening to audiobooks at night, when I couldn’t sleep (thank you menopause and hello working on this blog at 4am!) thus, where audiobooks are available, I’ve […]

Coping with Holiday Expectations

December 2, 2019 Jody Day 0

Click the image above or this link to watch this 1-hour webinar hosted by More to Life as part of their excellent free webinar series for childless people, this one on the topic of “Coping with Holiday Expectations”. As well as presenting my ‘Perfect Storm’ model to help you analyze and prepare for your holiday triggers in a new way, I am joined on the call by three members of ‘Team Gateway’, each of which are leading one of Gateway Women’s Plan B Mentorship Programmes in 2020: Lauren de Vere, Karin Enfield de Vries and Elizabeth Grambsch. Here is an […]

Letting go of the old year…

December 31, 2018 Jody Day 2

Amongst the myriad exhortations to embrace the new year with gusto, I wanted to make space for those less glamourous feelings – of loss, sadness, grief, wistfulness and confusion which are so much a part of every life, and so often close to the surface for those of us living the life unexpected. I thought you might find this recording of my Reflect & Renew webinar which I hosted last week (29th December 2018) to talk about feelings that come up at this ‘in-between’ liminal moment in the year, and how to cope with them. There are also questions from viewers […]

My 9th Childless Christmas & 3 Gifts for You

December 16, 2018 Jody Day 0

This is my ninth childless Christmas. Well, nine years since that first awful year when I came out of denial that my childlessness was a permanent ‘thing’, not just some inconvenient stopover on my path to motherhood. I can’t really remember that first Christmas because, although I’d ‘accepted’ in my head that I wasn’t going to be a mother, ever, in my heart and body there raged such a fire of confusion that I thought it was going to burn me alive. I didn’t yet know that what I was experiencing was grief; I didn’t find that out until almost […]

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