Model Harriet Sugarcookie Spent Christmas Alone Answering Strangers' Emails

While influencers curate cringey holiday content and celebrities retreat to private islands, content creator Harriet Sugarcookie is doing something that sounds almost too wholesome to be true: spending Christmas Day alone at her computer, responding to emails from lonely strangers.

Harriet Sugarcookie, a name that typically appears in very different contexts online, has quietly maintained what might be the internet's most unexpected holiday tradition. For one day each year, she opens her inbox to anyone who needs someone to talk to. No paywall. No premium tier. Just a person willing to listen.

“When I first started this tradition, it was because I personally noticed how demanding Christmas as a holiday can be to individuals,” she said. “The pressure we have to spend it with family, loved ones, go be happy and jolly. It feels almost hostile to those who for whatever reason, are unable to celebrate the holidays in those ways. I opened up my email, and my message has always been this: If you’re alone, for whatever reason, send me an email and I’ll wish you a merry Christmas. It’s not much, but it’s someone out there who is celebrating with you.”

This is someone whose professional brand exists in OnlyF---, one of the internet's most transactional spaces, yet she's created something profoundly non-transactional. While other creators leverage digital “relationships” for profit, Harriet has more genuine plans.

Hundreds of messages flood into her email every Christmas, and they’re not just quick notes. They share grief, job losses, family estrangements and small victories no one else celebrated. And she responds to them all, not with automated messages or generic replies, but with individual attention to strangers who found her email address on the internet.

“Over the years I’ve received over thousands of emails on Christmas Day,” she says. “I’ve spent almost three days replying rather than the intended ones because the volume of emails were so high. And the people writing in have so many reasons to do so. Some have no family, some are deployed and unable to go home for the holidays, some are working in hospitals… there’s an endless number of reasons why someone is alone on Christmas Day, and my tradition is to simple say “you’re not alone, you can email me.”

If you were cynical, you’d call it brilliant brand management. But there’s no monetization strategy here. No content upsell. No "upgrade to premium for priority responses."

In an economy increasingly built on artificial scarcity and paid access, someone found a way to create abundance. The person doing it just happens to make her living in an industry we've decided doesn't get to be kind without suspicion.