If You Had One Holiday Wish, Would You Use It to Help the World?
By: Fariha Neemai
Tags: Christmas, Love, Holiday Season, Thinkpiece, Gratitude

(Photo Credits: Google Images)

The holiday season of 2020 harbors a rather eerie, darker aura to it than it ever has before. “The most wonderful time of the year” doesn’t quite ring the same bell it always has. With unsettling, extreme shifts in the weather, a plethora of individual lives and the struggles attached to them in states of limbo, and self-made and run businesses hanging on by a hopeful, thin thread, the need for a Christmas miracle feels a little too magical to imagine actually possible.

It’s difficult to soak in the whimsy of Christmas time this year. Even as someone who has grown up in a home where we never celebrated the holiday to begin with, I dearly miss the enchanting air that floats around New York City. What a pleasure it used to be, watching the days get smaller as the gift of giving and love blossomed so prosperously around me, that even the coldest of hearts turned a little less bitter.

But how disheartening it may feel for the youngest of our community, trying to find a normalcy from the insides of their homes. How confusing it must be, skimming through various streaming platforms in search of the perfect Christmas movie with the perfect balance of Christmas spirit, only to feel underwhelmed by the reality? How hopeful they must be for celebratory meals and presents to reward them for their sanity being cooped up inside, bored and out of touch?

‘When will things get back to the way they used to be?’, I used to ask myself at the beginning of this chaotic, challenging time, only to realize there was never a real normal to turn back to.

The children that are all around us, scattered throughout every single neighborhood, experiencing school for the first time behind a glass screen and through a microphone will only know these days to be the way life just goes.

It is a blessing to be alive today, living in a residential area within suburban Queens, sufficient space to breathe and colorful lights and ornamented lawn shrubs to remind me that the end of the year festivities have definitely arrived. It is of great gratitude that I look to this Christmas as the first real Christmas I have ever really celebrated. Though unsuccessful in properly finding and transporting a tree to the space I call my home, nor wrapping up boxes and gifts for myself and my husband, the magic of Christmastime has surely immersed in me.

Anxieties about the state of the world, and as a daughter, sister and wife, the wellness and health of our families and loved ones, can be strikingly difficult to swallow at times. The briskness of winter stings different this year than I remember. My body aches from the intense winds these days, unused to spending time outside. And still, with the least ideal circumstances, I’ve found myself in the most peace and solace of my life.

Though I find myself in no position yet to make the bigger strides in our universal society to lend the necessary hand, I’ve discovered a pathway to getting there this holiday season. As we all reflect on what many consider ‘the worst year to date’, the blessings that come with simply feeling and accepting that I am blessed motivate me in the best of ways.

It’s quite easy to fall into a black hole of stress and a consumption of your own worries. Though we’re past the panic point of coping with this global pandemic, the continuous effort to keep giving, giving, giving should never halt. The mindset to join forces with everyone, our global comrades who have all experienced, no matter to what degree, the same unifying crisis, is perhaps the love and tenderness that we all need to keep moving forward at a time where the future, your own and that of the world around you, remains a misty blur.