Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! 🎄😃

Christmas is losing its spunk. Or so, that’s how it’s been slowly starting to feel over the last few years. Originally when I started to think this, I thought ‘surely not’, maybe it’s just a one-year thing, so I pressed the thought down and tucked it away. Kind of like a teen would do when tidying their room – stashing their clothes into a brimming wardrobe and slamming it shut, hoping they won’t have to open it again and experience the cascade of clothes that would occur if they did.

I suspect, at the root of this feeling is a fruitless comparison to the Christmas days experienced as a child – where it was a holiday that dripped with anticipation. I would watch fun films or bring toys into school to play with, eagerly open my chocolate advent calendar in the run-up to that day and help my dad set up the tree and streamers across the living room. My family would collect Christmas cards like Pokemon cards, often eventually running out of space in the house to hang them. Presents were always an expectation, as is still the case for many children today. I would religiously make lists of what to get each of my closest friends and would also sift for ages at a time through the Argos catalogue to create a present wishlist of my own for my parents.

Nowadays, the holidays aren’t too consumed with presents for me – I typically buy myself one or two gifts to get into the spirit and may also give gifts (if I can) to selected friends. We don’t really bother with a tree and decorations anymore so it’s simply an occasion of Christmas tunes, food and music now. To be fair, I don’t mind having Christmas this way that much, I think my celebrations are less consumer-ist focused now which means I can properly appreciate what matters most  –  family time, ending the year on a high and most importantly, for me as a believer, the significance of Jesus’ birth to [the fate of] humankind (John 3:16).

Thinking about all of this recently it was therefore profound to see this tweet which talks about dwelling less on the Christmas of our childhood and creating a new reality of Christmas which fits our current lifestyle and expectations as adults.

I think people hold on to what Christmas was like when we were kids. We are grown. It is different. Create a new reality and learn to enjoy it in a new way.

— Arlène (@arlened_) December 24, 2021

I think there’s an important point to be made there since otherwise, without making a deliberate choice to create this new reality, we’ll always be comparing Christmases that have passed to Christmas now and we’ll always be disappointed.

Who knows, perhaps when or if I have children I’ll change my tune and insist on Instagram-worthy Christmases every year but for now, this is where I stand.