Having it all - a business, home and family - doesn't mean your world can't collapse overnight.
Just ask Phill Swann, who has spent 16 years caring for Adelaide's homeless at the Hutt St Centre.
About 200 people come through its doors each day for food, a shower and a place where they're welcome and safe.
They represent a fraction of the 6000 South Australians who have nowhere to go each night, according to the University of Adelaide.
"You might have a successful business, a house, a family and a car, all the trimmings," Mr Swann said.
"Over the course of a few weeks, your business collapses and the family splits up and bang. Where do you go? Who do you turn to?
"You can be Mr Middle Class and you're here one day looking for assistance."
For these people, Christmas becomes another reminder of what they've lost or never had.
"It's a time when everyone thinks of their family - good, bad or indifferent," Mr Swann said.
"If you don't have your supports, if you don't have any friends at Christmas, you're sitting around wondering why your life went downhill."
John, Patricia and Rob are some of the 150 or so people expected for the centre's Christmas lunch.
Whatever else is going on in their lives, it's a day when they can come together and have a big feed.
These are their stories.
JOHN, 62
This time last year, John was jetting off to New Zealand to spend Christmas with his siblings.
Now he lives in a van along Adelaide's parklands and is spending the holidays window-shopping for gifts he can't afford.
"I still go into Myers and see stuff and think `that'd be nice for my sister'. I know I can't buy it but I'm still shopping in my mind," he said.
"We've always loved Christmas - the whole family - and the build-up."
John lost his job in a Perth carpet factory last year when it shifted to Thailand.
He drove to Adelaide with the prospect of a construction job but failed the company physical because of his spinal arthritis and a history of heart attacks.
When the money dried up, he was forced to move into his car.
"It brings back a lot of bad memories and things like that when you sit in your van on your own," John said.
"I'd love to go to the pictures or something like that. I'd like to do something that keeps your mind off things but I just can't."
John will spend Christmas day at the centre, which he calls his "saviour".
"I was dreading Christmas Day because I didn't think this place was open. But then I found out it was."
PATRICIA, 41
Patricia wants to barbecue a kangaroo tail in the parklands for Christmas but has no money to buy one.
She is one of about 100 Aboriginal people who fled Yuendumu, a remote Northern Territory settlement when riots broke out over a family feud and fatal stabbing in 2010.
A member of the Warlpiri tribe, Patricia lives with her daughter and relatives in the park.
"No tent and no mattress," she said between long silences.
Patricia doesn't think there's anything for her back home and would rather stay in the park.
But she is trying to move into a house.
Christmas doesn't mean much. Food. Alcohol. A place to live. They mean things.
Even so, the group will take their lunch from the centre back to the park.
"I got no money to get Christmas dinner. Nothing," Patricia said.
They will eat in a circle - the old way - but there will be no stories.
"I got no stories. My memories ... gone."
ROB, 64
Rob can't imagine not being homeless for Christmas.
He has spent the past decade in boarding houses, sleeping rough and couch-surfing after leaving his wife in regional South Australia.
"I don't find anything to dislike about being homeless. I'm so used to it. I don't notice any difference," he said.
Christmas isn't anything to get excited about or dread.
There's lunch at the centre and an afternoon with his elderly mother.
"It is just like an extended family Christmas," Rob said.
He's currently staying with a friend but used to live in the parklands because they were safer than his boarding house.
"It was horrible. I'd go to work and they'd break into my room and pinch all my stuff and [they] stole my car," Rob said.
He said he loved the park. "You woke up in the morning and it was beautiful and fresh."
Living rough cost Rob his job as a bricklayer because he had nowhere to wash.
Although he now showers at the centre, he doesn't want to return to his old life.
"I'm homeless by choice probably. I'm quite happy being homeless.
"If they [the centre] would give the nod, I'd go back into the park."
There is no homelessness stereotype.
For some people it's a lifestyle choice or the result of a disability.
For many Aboriginal people, it's a legacy of violence and dispossession.
Their biggest issue at Christmas isn't a lack of material goods but isolation.
"It gets built up as a massive part of our culture and not having anyone to be with - the other day I saw a Christmas advertisement in the city and they're depicting families having dinner," Hutt St Centre case manager Alex McNaughton said.
"So it's difficult, a reminder of what people don't have."
