From Magic to Machinery

There was a time when Christmas drifted down from the sky without effort, soft as breath. Snow settled on windowpanes, cheeks burned with cold, and the stove glowed like a guardian watching over us.

The tree stood in the living room, overdressed in baubles and tinsel, but catching candlelight in a thousand brief suns. We lit real candles then; no warnings, no regulations, no paperwork to smother wonder. Sparklers hissed themselves into silence, and the room held its breath. We shared gifts, kept old rituals alive, and opened our doors to family and friends. That was Christmas as I knew it: white, fragile, enchanted.

But somewhere along the way, experience twisted the gears in a different direction.

Christmas transformed into a machine, a powerful money‑spending engine that runs on endless shopping and nerves. What was once a celebration of warmth and togetherness turned into a deep hole filled with debts, obligations, and stress. Gatherings became chores, not joy. Receipts grew taller than snowdrifts, bills heavier than frozen earth. The cycles of generosity have calcified into a cycle of greed; many moments of grace became moments of grasping. Magic dimmed under fluorescent lights and sales banners, lost in the churn of ads and noise.

These repetitions carved grooves in us. The calendar flips to December, and we soften on cue. Hearts thaw, generosity flows, charity boxes fill, and everyone plays the role of a better version of themselves, as if the season grants absolution. We forget our wrongs, cleanse in the glow of LEDs and carols, ready to repeat our mistakes for another year. It’s ritualistic, almost mechanical, a yearly cultural software update that runs every winter.

And then, almost invisibly, the world shifted again.

Once, Christmas was a holy thing. It started as a sacred ritual, a devotion etched in hymns and idols, its light rising like incense into the winter sky. Slowly, that edge softened; the altar became the hearth, and the sacred folded into a family holiday filled with kindness and the gentle promise of good intentions.

But stripped from its roots, Christmas hardens into something brittle. It hangs above us like a suspended blade, shadowing traditions, slicing into memory. What once united now divides. Its glow fractures across arguments about meaning, identity, and culture. It’s no longer faith or family. It’s debate, tension, ideology.

And still, in the cracks, Christmas survives.
Quiet now. Personal. A small, stubborn flame that refuses to die.

I choose to keep it.

Please, spare me the judgment!

Even in its commercial, politicised, exhausted state, it still holds a spark for me: a memory, a warmth, a sliver of the impossible.

Fragile, yes.

But alive.