Loneliness, can we help ?

I have a friend who I rarely see but he is a very lonely man and I really feel for him because he has no family and not too many friends. Partly because he is very blunt but he is a good person underneath all that. He doesn’t live close to us but we did manage to catch up briefly before Christmas. I am going to ring him tomorrow because I know Christmas is hard for him. Loneliness and depression are awful things. As a child I would often feel lonely because I had no brothers or sisters, especially during holiday times .