Widower who wants company for Christmas left a note at local supermarket

A widower from Berlin, Germany has been getting a number of invitations from people offering to save a space at their Christmas table. The invites come after he decided to write a note at his local supermarket's notice board.

An elderly man wouldn’t want to spend Christmas alone, so he thought about a way to find company. "Where can a lonely pensioner and widower find a place in a small group for Christmas," he wrote.

His note got the attention of civil servant Femina Lisa. She took a photo of the note and posted it on Facebook. The accompanying message says that she was hoping someone would fulfil the man’s wish.

Lisa told Stuttgarter Nachrichten that she shared a picture of the note on social media because she was afraid no one would see it. She was overwhelmed with the responses; she never thought there would be so many of them.

Her Facebook post has been shared a thousand times. Netizens are commenting to invite the widower over for Christmas lunch.

The 27-year-old said she couldn’t keep up with the responses at one point. Even supermarket employees felt the interest of people as they needed to take the notice down to save the elderly from getting too overwhelmed.

The widower himself reportedly got overwhelmed, too. But he was pleased with the kind gesture and for the people’s offer to keep him company on Christmas.

Lisa said the elderly man is very touched and pleased. She has helped the widower sort through all of the invites.

While the widower from Berlin looks set for Christmas, some organisations believe they need to reach out to more seniors from other parts of the world. Home Instead Senior Care, for instance, has its annual “Be a Santa to a Senior” program that seeks to collect and distribute gifts for local seniors who could not spend the holidays with their family or friends.

“So many seniors that are isolated in their homes alone just no longer have family around, and there’s a lot of depression and things that happen with that process which also causes their health to decline, and so something as simple as getting a small gift can really brighten their day and help with that depression and things of that nature,” TDT News reports Home Instead franchise owner Brandy Firebaugh as saying.