At this time of year, it can feel as though Christmas is everywhere and nowhere all at once.The lights are up. The shops are full. The calendar fills quickly. Yet so often the story at the heart of Christmas — the one about light entering darkness, hope arriving quietly, love choosing vulnerability — feels strangely absent from the public square.
Instead, many people experience December as a season of pressure: to spend money they do not have, to create a perfect family moment that may feel painfully out of reach, to carry expectations that weigh heavier than the tinsel suggests. For some, this time of year amplifies loneliness rather than easing it.
And yet.
If we strip away the commercialism and the relentless advertising, something else is happening too — something deeply human, and quietly hopeful.
This is the season when people make intentional choices to be kinder. Lonely neighbours are invited to Christmas lunch. Families gather despite old fractures and unresolved stories. Food banks, charities, and community groups work tirelessly to bring warmth, dignity, and good cheer to those who are struggling.
Yesterday, while shopping in Morrisons, I was intercepted — rather joyfully — by a small army of teenagers dressed as elves, asking customers to donate an item of shopping to the food bank. I have absolutely no idea whether any of them were Christians. But I knew this much: they were enacting the heart of the Christmas message. Caring for the poor, standing in solidarity and turning abundance into generosity.
Later that same day, I found myself reading a prayer by St Brigid of Ireland, and it stopped me in my tracks. Because what she names in her words is exactly what so many people are already doing at this time of year — people of faith and people of no faith alike.
They are bringing light into darkness.
They are offering hope to the downcast.
They are choosing harmony where there has been conflict.
Sometimes the sacred story is not proclaimed; it is lived.
Perhaps this is one of the quiet miracles of Christmas: that even when the religious language fades, the deeper impulse remains. Compassion still rises. Kindness still insists on being expressed. Love still finds its way through unexpected messengers — sometimes wearing elf costumes in a supermarket aisle.
And so my prayer for us all, whatever words we use or do not use, is beautifully captured in the closing line of St Brigid’s prayer:
May we all grow each day into greater wholeness in mind, body, and spirit.
If that is what Christmas is helping us become — even imperfectly, even unknowingly — then perhaps the light is nearer than we think.