A former miner believes it'll be a tough Christmas for workers at the Huntly East Mine.

Solid Energy will announce it's final plan for the Huntly East Mine at 10am after proposing to permanently shut the mine ten days ago, which would see 68 workers lose their jobs.

Former Huntly miner Steven Lamb was made redundant in 2013 and said the next few months will be hell for the miners.

"It was five months of being out of work - right around this time, so there's not a lot of opportunities actually coming about and basically knew that Christmas was going to be really sad for family and kids."

Lamb said it took him five months and hundreds of job applications to get another job.

"There's not a lot of work out there, especially for those guys - the skills that we have are very much suited to the extractive industry really."

Falling coal prices and a lack of demand are behind Solid Energy's proposal. The company went into voluntary administration last month.

The coal mine had been operating since 1978.