When Christmas festivities seem quiter than what we are used to

By Joanne Mwita

There is something different about Christmas this year.

Not the calendar, December still arrived right on time. Not the decorations either; the lights are up, the carols still play, the adverts still insist on cheer. And yet, beneath all of it, something feels… muted.

As though the spirit of Christmas was gently siphoned out while no one was looking, leaving behind the shape of celebration without its heartbeat.

This year, the joy feels forced. Smiles linger a second too short. Laughter doesn’t quite land. People are going through the motions of Christmas rather than being carried by it.

It’s hard to feel festive when the air itself feels tense; when uncertainty hums in the background of everyday life. When conversations drift inevitably toward what’s been lost, stability, peace of mind, and certainty about the future.

When even hope feels like something you have to consciously hold onto, rather than something that naturally rises.

In 2025, Christmas didn’t arrive singing. It arrived sighing.

The world feels heavy, and people are tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix. Many are showing up to the holidays already stretched thin financially, emotionally, spiritually. The pressure to feel grateful clashes with the reality of feeling overwhelmed. The expectation of joy meets a generation that is simply trying to survive the year intact.

And so, the magic feels stolen. Like something slipped through the cracks while we were busy coping.

Still, even in this quiet, people are trying.

You see it in the small, stubborn gestures. In households that decorate anyway, even if the tree is smaller and the gifts fewer. In families that cook what they can, stretch meals, share laughter between worries. In friends who gather not because they’re bursting with joy, but because being alone would feel worse.

There is a kind of courage in pretending long enough for the pretending to soften into something real.

Children still wait for Christmas morning with wide eyes, unaware of the weight adults are carrying. Parents do their best to protect that innocence, even as they silently calculate costs and compromises. Somewhere between worry and wonder, love fills the gap.

This is not the loud, glittering Christmas of movies and memories. This is a softer tone. A hum instead of a song. A candle instead of fireworks.

It’s tempting to say Christmas has lost its meaning this year. But maybe it’s more honest to say its meaning has changed.

Because when joy is scarce, hope becomes more intentional. It’s no longer automatic; it’s chosen. Chosen in moments. Chosen in effort. Chosen in the decision to show up at all.

The Grinch, after all, didn’t just steal Christmas he revealed something about it. That it wasn’t only in the noise, the gifts, the spectacle. That it could survive being stripped down to its bare bones. That something quieter, more human, could still remain.

And that’s what this Christmas feels like.

Stripped. Bare. Vulnerable.

But not entirely empty.

Hope this year doesn’t look like excitement. It looks like endurance. It looks like people holding on, even when they don’t feel particularly festive. It looks like faith in small things—a shared meal, a familiar song, a moment of peace.

Maybe Christmas in 2025 isn’t here to make us giddy. Maybe it’s here to remind us that even when the world feels off-balance, we still reach for each other. That even when the joy feels stolen, we keep setting the table. We keep lighting the candles. We keep believing that something warmer is still possible.

This Christmas is quieter.

But perhaps that quiet is asking us to listen more closely to what really matters, to who we love, to the fragile hope that refuses to disappear, even when the season feels heavy.

And maybe that, too, is a kind of magic.

Joanne Mwita is a digital reporter with The Citizen