The SantaBlog Series, Day 17. (Christmas Is What We Choose to Be)

THE SANTABLOG SERIES

DAY 17

_{Press play before you scroll. Let’s get into that Christmas spirit. Let’s go ho ho}

Christmas Is Not a Thing, It’s a Choice

Somewhere along the way, Christmas got turned into something we think happens to us. Like it arrives fully formed, drops itself into our lives, and either works its magic or doesn’t. A good Christmas or a bad one. A lucky year or an unlucky year. As if we’re passengers rather than participants.

But the older you get, the harder that idea is to believe.

Because Christmas doesn’t actually exist as a fixed thing. Not in the way we pretend it does. There isn’t one universal version that everyone steps into at the same time. What there is instead is a collection of choices, made quietly and repeatedly, often without us even realising we’re making them.

Do we slow down or keep rushing.
Do we soften or stay guarded.
Do we notice people or stay wrapped up in ourselves.

Those decisions shape the season far more than decorations or music ever could.

This is why two people can live through the same December and come away with completely different experiences. One feels warmth, connection, meaning. The other feels pressure, absence, disappointment. It’s not because one of them did Christmas “right” and the other didn’t. It’s because Christmas reflects what we bring into it, and what we choose to do with what’s already there.

That can feel uncomfortable to admit. It’s easier to blame circumstances. Money. Time. Family dynamics. The year we’ve had. And all of those things matter, they really do. But even within those limits, there’s still room for choice. Not big, life changing choices. Small ones. Subtle ones. The kind that don’t make headlines but quietly change the shape of a day.

Christmas has always worked like that. Long before adverts and expectations and schedules, it existed as a response to winter. A human answer to darkness, cold, and uncertainty. People chose to gather. Chose to share what they had. Chose to tell stories, light fires, and remind each other that they weren’t alone. None of that was guaranteed. It was intentional.

Somewhere along the line, we forgot that part.

We started treating Christmas like a performance instead of a practice. Something to measure rather than something to inhabit. And when it doesn’t match the image in our heads, we assume it’s failed. That we’ve failed. But Christmas doesn’t collapse because things aren’t perfect. It only collapses when we stop engaging with it altogether.

Belief plays a role here too. Not belief in a literal sense, not fairy tales or childhood stories, but belief in what the season represents. The idea that kindness matters. That warmth can be shared. That connection is worth effort. That hope is something we actively keep alive, not something we wait to feel.

That belief doesn’t disappear when we grow up. It just changes hands.

At some point, Christmas stops being something given to us and starts being something we create. Through tone. Through patience. Through choosing not to add to the noise when the world already feels loud enough. Through choosing to care, even when it would be easier not to.

That’s what this post is really about. Not nostalgia. Not tradition for tradition’s sake. But the quiet truth that Christmas becomes whatever we choose to make of it. And that choice, whether we realise it or not, is being made every single day in December.

The Stories We Carry Forward

Christmas doesn’t survive because it’s easy or perfect. It survives because we keep carrying it forward, even when life changes, even when people disappear, even when the world feels heavier than it used to. Traditions don’t last because they stay the same. They last because they adapt, quietly reshaped by the people living them.

Every family has its own version of Christmas, even if they don’t realise it. The way the tree is put up. The food that always seems to appear no matter what year it is. The song that somehow sneaks on every time. The chair that stays empty but still matters. None of these things are written down. They’re passed on through repetition, memory, and habit. Through doing something again without fully knowing why it still feels important.

As we get older, we start noticing how much of Christmas is built from borrowed moments. Things that once belonged to someone else. A saying that sounds like a parent or grandparent. A recipe that outlived the person who made it famous. A tradition that started because someone once needed comfort and never stopped. These things become anchors. They hold Christmas steady even when everything else moves.

What’s strange is how these traditions continue to matter even when belief fades. You might not believe in Santa anymore, not in the literal sense, but you still wrap presents carefully. You still hide surprises. You still enjoy the moment someone else opens something you chose for them. That instinct doesn’t disappear when the myth does. It just changes shape.

This is where Christmas becomes something quieter and more powerful. It stops being about whether the story is true and starts being about why we keep telling it. Why we keep choosing warmth when the world offers plenty of reasons to harden. Why we keep choosing generosity in a season that can easily turn into stress and obligation. Why, year after year, we keep returning to the same ideas of kindness, togetherness, and hope, even when life hasn’t been particularly kind in return.

Belief doesn’t have to be loud to be real. It doesn’t need certainty. Sometimes belief is just continuing to show up. Continuing to make space for others. Continuing to care in small ways. Christmas survives because people decide, consciously or not, that those things are still worth doing.

And that choice is made quietly, all the time, by ordinary people living ordinary lives.

The Choice We Make Without Realising It

What we often miss about Christmas is that it doesn’t arrive fully formed. It isn’t handed to us complete and polished, waiting to be unwrapped. It’s something we quietly assemble as we go, often without noticing we’re doing it. In small decisions. In reactions. In the way we treat the people around us when the pressure is on and the year is nearly spent.

Because Christmas doesn’t force us to be anything. It offers a setting, not a script. The lights go up, the songs return, the calendar tells us it’s December, but what we bring into that space is still our choice. We can carry bitterness into it, or softness. We can carry resentment, or patience. We can carry exhaustion and shut everything out, or exhaustion and still leave a little room for others.

That choice becomes clearer when things don’t go perfectly. When the plans fall apart. When the money feels tighter than we hoped. When family dynamics flare up again like they always seem to do. When the past shows up uninvited, sitting quietly in the corner of the room. In those moments, Christmas reveals what we’re choosing to lean into.

Some people choose defence. They pull back. They keep it surface-level. They protect themselves by not feeling too much. And that’s understandable. For some, that’s survival. But others choose something else. They choose to soften instead of harden. To listen instead of react. To let moments pass without turning them into battles that don’t need to be fought.

Neither choice makes someone good or bad. But they do shape the season.

Christmas becomes what we allow it to become. Not in a magical, everything-works-out way, but in a quiet, realistic way. In how we speak when we’re tired. In whether we notice who’s struggling instead of assuming everyone else has it together. In whether we give ourselves permission to feel joy without feeling guilty for it, or to feel sadness without trying to hide it behind forced cheer.

This is where Christmas stops being about tradition and starts being about intention.

Because belief doesn’t always look like excitement. Sometimes belief looks like choosing not to add more weight to a moment that’s already heavy. Sometimes it looks like choosing kindness even when you don’t feel particularly festive. Sometimes it looks like choosing not to make things worse, even if you can’t make them better.

That choice, repeated quietly, shapes everything.

It shapes how the season feels when the noise fades. It shapes what we remember when we look back. It shapes whether Christmas feels hollow or honest, overwhelming or grounding. Not because the season changed, but because we did something small inside it that mattered.

Christmas doesn’t demand belief.
It responds to it.

And the belief it asks for isn’t blind optimism or childish fantasy. It’s the belief that how we show up still counts. That our choices still ripple outward. That even at the end of a long, difficult year, what we choose to bring into a room can shift the atmosphere in ways we might never fully see.

That’s the quiet power we carry into Christmas, whether we realise it or not.

Choosing What We Carry Forward

By the time Christmas arrives, most of us already know what kind of year it has been. We don’t need to sit down and analyse it. Our bodies remember. Our reactions remember. The way we flinch at certain conversations, the way we breathe a little easier in quiet moments, the way we brace ourselves before walking into situations that used to feel simple. Christmas doesn’t create those feelings. It just brings them closer to the surface.

What it does give us, quietly, is a choice.

Not a dramatic one. Not a life-altering, everything-changes-today kind of choice. Just a small, human one. What do we carry forward, and what do we finally allow ourselves to put down. We don’t get to erase the hard parts of the year. We don’t get to rewrite losses or undo damage. But we do get to decide how much space they are allowed to take up going forward.

For some people, Christmas becomes the moment they realise they don’t want to keep dragging the same bitterness into another year. Not because what happened didn’t matter, but because carrying it has started to cost too much. For others, it’s the moment they stop apologising for being tired, or quieter, or different than they used to be. The season has a way of softening the edges enough for us to admit, at least to ourselves, that we’ve changed and that maybe that’s not a failure.

This is where Christmas becomes less about tradition and more about intention. The older we get, the more we realise that the magic was never just handed to us. Someone made it. Someone chose to create it, even when life was messy or money was tight or spirits were low. Someone decided that warmth was worth the effort, that kindness mattered, that gathering people together was important even if everything wasn’t perfect.

And now, whether we feel ready or not, that choice sits with us.

We don’t all choose the same things. Some choose forgiveness. Some choose boundaries. Some choose rest. Some choose to show up more gently than they did before. Some choose to be the person who makes things feel lighter for others because they know what it’s like when nothing does. None of these choices look impressive from the outside, but they shape the kind of Christmas we experience far more than decorations or plans ever could.

Christmas becomes what we choose to be because belief shifts with age. It stops being about whether the story is literally true and starts being about whether the feeling is. Whether we still believe in generosity when it’s inconvenient. Whether we still believe in togetherness when it requires effort. Whether we still believe that small acts can matter in a world that often feels too loud to notice them.

Choosing Christmas doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means deciding that even with the weight of the year behind us, we’re willing to let a little warmth exist alongside it. It means letting the season be imperfect, human, and sometimes quieter than it used to be. It means understanding that magic doesn’t always sparkle. Sometimes it just steadies us long enough to keep going.

And that choice, made quietly and without applause, is often the most honest version of Christmas there is.

The Choice That Comes With Belief

Believing in Christmas is easy when life is kind. When the lights look pretty, the music sounds right, and the season fits neatly around what you already have. But belief means something different when things are harder. When the shine doesn’t land the same way. When the year has taken more than it gave. That’s where the idea of choice starts to matter.

Because Christmas, at its core, is not passive. It isn’t something that simply happens to us. It’s something we participate in, whether we realise it or not. Every year, we decide how much of ourselves we bring to it. Not in terms of effort or expense, but in attention. In intention. In how we treat the people around us when everything is louder, brighter, and more emotionally charged.

It’s easy to say Christmas is about kindness. It’s harder to live that out when we’re tired, short-tempered, stressed, or carrying our own invisible weight. This is the point where belief stops being sentimental and starts being practical. Not dramatic acts of generosity, not grand gestures, just small decisions made consistently. How we speak. How patient we are. Whether we notice someone or look straight past them. Whether we soften or harden when the pressure builds.

Choosing Christmas doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means deciding that, despite everything, you won’t add more cold to an already cold world. It means recognising that the season gives us a strange kind of permission. Permission to pause. Permission to be gentler. Permission to let some things go. Permission to show up differently, even if just a little.

This is where Christmas becomes less about tradition and more about values. Not the values printed on cards or sung about in songs, but the quiet ones that show up in ordinary moments. The choice to listen instead of rush. The choice to be patient instead of sharp. The choice to offer warmth where it would be easier to withdraw it. These choices rarely feel festive in the moment, but they are the very things that give the season its meaning.

Belief, in this sense, is not naïve. It’s deliberate. It’s the decision to carry something forward even when the world gives you reasons not to. To believe that kindness still matters. That connection still matters. That how we treat each other, especially when we’re stretched thin, still counts.

Christmas doesn’t force that choice on us. It simply puts it in front of us, every year, and asks quietly what we’re going to do with it.

The Choice That Makes It Christmas

In the end, Christmas has never truly belonged to one story, one religion, one country, or one moment in time. It does not live in calendars or dates or traditions alone. It lives in people. In decisions made quietly, often without applause, year after year. When the noise fades and the decorations eventually come down, that is what remains. The choice.

You decide what Christmas becomes. You decide whether it feels hollow or meaningful, rushed or grounded, heavy or warm. You decide whether it is defined by what is missing or by what is still here. The world will always try to tell us what Christmas should look like, what it should cost, how it should feel. But none of that truly matters unless we allow it to mean something on our own terms.

Christmas becomes real in the small moments we choose not to ignore. In choosing to slow down when everything else demands speed. In choosing to reach out when it would be easier to stay quiet. In choosing to be present rather than perfect. These choices are not dramatic or loud, but they are powerful. They are the quiet architecture that holds the season together.

We do not keep the spirit of Christmas alive because it is fragile. We keep it alive because we are human. Because even when the year has been hard, even when belief feels thin, even when the world feels colder than it should, someone still lights a candle, still gives without expecting anything back, still believes there is kindness worth protecting.

That is what makes it Christmas.

Not the date. Not the gifts. Not the weather.

The choice to care. The choice to connect. The choice to show up with warmth in a world that often forgets how.

So this year, choose it again. Choose kindness where you can. Choose connection where it matters. Choose to notice the people around you, even briefly. Choose to be gentle, with others and with yourself.

Because Christmas is not something we wait for.
It is something we choose to be.

Every single time.

🎅THEPLAINANDSIMPLEGUY🎅

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