Candy canes, chocolate-covered cherries, brownies and sugar cookies — all sweet things that may come your way during the month of December. Sadly though, a new poll has found some less-than-sweet patterns also occurring this month.

A new poll conducted by Sugarcookie.com has found that 50 percent of men expect to feel lonely this Christmas.

A survey of men aged 18 to 40 conducted by the lifestyle site has found nearly half of the respondents expect to feel lonely this Christmas. Four out of five said they had experienced loneliness during a previous Christmas.

“We were shocked by how many men expect to feel lonely this year,” said site founder Harriet Sugarcookie. “It seems, at some point, most guys experience a lonely Christmas.”

There are so many reasons a guy might be lonely at Christmas. The most commonly reported reason was work-related (30%). Other reasons followed, including: they don’t get on with their family (21%), they are feeling anti-social (21%), they live abroad (14%), they don’t have friends (14%) or they don’t have family (9%).

Whatever the reason for feeling lonely this Christmas, Sugarcookie wants to be there for as many people as possible. She said, “Christmas is one of the hardest times for me personally. It feels impossible to tell people that you feel lonely. It’s a subject that’s very close to my heart.”

“There’s a lot of pressure to have this perfect, happy family Christmas that just isn’t possible for everyone, every year,” she added.

For the last four years, Sugarcookie has opened up her private email to lonely guys at Christmas. She spends all of Christmas Day writing personal messages and replies to those in need.

“I want people to know that if you are spending Christmas alone, or just feeling lonely, that you don’t have to be because you can write to me and I will write a personal message back to you,” she said.

“Last year so many people wrote it it took me two full days days to write back to everyone,” Sugarcookie explained. “And this year, I want to reach even more and just tell them it’s okay, they’re not alone. Not completely, at least.”

Sugarcookie has produced a guide to not being alone during Christmas and an infographic detailing the full results of the survey (below), as well as details of how to contact her if you’re feeling alone at Christmas.

To contact Sugarcookie if you are alone at Christmas, please write to harrietsugarcookie@gmail.com.