Seeking the spirit of Christmas

One of my biggest fears in life is to grow old to become a bitter, underwhelmed and unimpressed human being. And sometimes it seems almost like a prophecy that is coming to fruition. Christmas used to be my favourite time of the year. I’m using the past tense, but the reality is that it still is a time I enjoy – there is no other event I look forward to so much as the holiday season in December. I love the lights, I love the chilly nights by the fireplace or wrapped in blankets. I love getting some gifts for my loved ones, I love the decorations. And of course, what one loves the most – the food. I always make sure I’m home with family for Christmas (only once I wasn’t) and it’s the time when tradition is the most important to me – one of the rare things I hope would never change, cause I like it exactly as it is every year.

But for some reason that enthusiasm seems to be flattening and fleeting. I am likely way too aware of how consumerist this season has become. I have started to notice that instead of joy in the air, I feel the stress, and the anxiety. Either people are too worried about which gifts to buy, or perhaps worried about the money they don’t have to even put food on the table. Everyone seems too tired, so done. It has made me wonder if I should start looking at this holiday just as another time in the year…

Christmas definitely used to be the best time of the year for me. Straight after Halloween, I’d start to think about it. Slowly seeing the lights being turned on the streets, the first decorations in the shops’ windows. Yet, this year I am not listening to the music or getting dazzled by the lights. I am instead listening about war, killing, and genocides. I’m listening about gun violence and racism, with the right wings taking over Europe. I am hearing about corruption, about prices of everything essential to live going up, leading to more people who won’t have a home this Christmas, who will be spending it on the streets. And here I am trying to get excited about Christmas, which seems like an old childhood dream.

Yet, at the same time, there is this voice inside me pulling me out of that darkness, trying to shut all of the demons that keep me awake at night and torment me in the bright hours. A voice that tells me yes the world is shit, and is cruel. And there is nothing I can alone do, especially by losing the will to celebrate, losing the spark that allows me to go on with my life. Christmas used to bring me that spark, something to look forward to, and something meaningful. And that I shouldn’t feel guilty for trying to be happy even when everything just looks so shit.

So, I went to see the lights of my hometown. I’m missing London at the moment because London knows how to do Christmas. there was always so much to do and to see in London. But now I am here, and I have to be glad that my hometown is putting such an effort into lighting up the city, almost as if attempting to lift everyone’s spirits. Perhaps it’s time to allow ourselves to be ignorant of the evils of the world, to allow ourselves to be filled with delusional joy and embrace that same illusion. What else have we got after all?

Love, Nic