You can feel it in the air already. As white frost stretches across windowpanes and trees shake off the last of their leaves. As twinkling lights rise to fill their place and scents of pine follow you wherever you go. As sounds ring out like bells in front of shops, like Sinatra and Crosby coming through the radio, like plans being made to see one another.
It’s the feeling of Christmas, and if you’re anything like me, it’s one you anticipate all year long. A bright spot that shines in the distance. There as a promise of the year’s finality, and with it, a chance to slow down and surround yourself with only what fills you up—the people, the meals, the traditions no one dares let go.
This is the Christmas I hope for. The one I dream about during springs that feel like sprints and dead-hot summers that seem to have no end. It’s the one I imagine waiting for me on the other side of hectic autumns and schedules that got the best of me. And it’s the Christmas I’ve learned I’ll have to fight for these next few months as the tendency to keep hustling blurs my reach for Christmas as it should be.
It isn’t always so easy in a season that can pull us in lots of directions. Where the peace we long for, the time back we’ve earned, is constantly at war with expectations of more: more doing, more buying, more magic, more everything. And look, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m generally a do-whatever-it-takes kind of girl. It’s in my nature, and for ten months of the year I really don’t question it. But Christmas? This is when I say enough is enough. This is when I want to rebel against my own nature and rebel against the voices in our culture telling me it won’t be the day of my dreams if I’m not out there hustling.
Illustration by Lida Ziruffo
The thing is, those voices have overplayed their hand. Because I have known intimately the feeling of waking up to Christmas bleary-eyed and flat-out exhausted. I have spent the day I waited for all year waiting for it to be over. Wondering why I let the moments that mean the most slip through overworked hands. Why the holidays felt like something to produce instead of like rest, like a test instead of respite. Why I ever believed there isn’t enough magic in the simplicity of a crackling fire or enough delight in the company of one another.
This hasn’t been the story of every Christmas past, but for the ones it has, I can remember arriving at December 26 with the painful realization that I’d just surrendered a year of hopeful expectation to a world that would rather keep me working for worth than being content with enough. But Christmas stripped down is what I’m after, and here’s the gentle truth: It’s more than we could ever need.
“... Christmas stripped down is what I’m after, and here’s the gentle truth: It’s more than we could ever need.”
Let’s not, any of us, pretend that enough is impossible to define. That we can’t put words to what will mean the most to us and to our family and friends this time of year. For me, enough is an essentials-only Christmas. One where I am loved and have the chance to love in return. One where I am warmed by my family and my friends. One that lets me breathe—and deeply. Instead of requiring the kind of exhale that leaves me breathless, it makes space for the kind of breath that lifts and stirs me awake to the moments I set out to take in.
Our bodies need an off-ramp, though. They need time to find steady. For me, the slowdown starts in November—by saying no. No to the hurry. No to the stress of doing things that don’t fill my cup. No to the temptation to do more. Because we know that time doesn’t double for those who run faster. It disappears. And we know that peace can’t find us when we’ve wandered too far from the hope we started with.
So, here’s to a Christmas unsurrendered. A Christmas that settles in so deep that it drowns out the hustle and bustle all around. One that’s clothed in the same peace and presence as the very first. Here’s to a Christmas so rebelliously fulfilling that even a weary world can rejoice.
This story has been adapted from the winter 2025 issue of Magnolia Journal. To see it in print, pick up your copy here or on a newsstand near you. Then, start a subscription for inspiration year-round.
