I NO longer celebrate Christmas. I have not, since I was 15. While I am not religious, that is not the reason behind me not celebrating the holiday.

I think one of the problems I have with the season is that it does not even seem to be one rooted in faith anymore (not that it ever was; Christmas is a pagan holiday that Christians adopted for themselves). It has rather become a celebration of consumerism, wherein colourful cutouts of the ‘jolly red man’ can be seen in almost every home.

As a child, Christmas for me meant seeing family members I might not have seen for the entire year, and being able to spend time talking and playing with them. It saw people in our community mingling in each other’s houses, eating and just enjoying whatever ‘spirit’ seemed to take over the majority of us at that time. So while I would like to celebrate Christmas for what I remember it to be, at this point in my life, given the current economic and social realities of the country and world at large, I cannot, in all good conscience, actively celebrate the industrial exploitation that is Christmas.

Maybe it is an annoying character trait, but in times of mass celebration, I always find myself thinking about the rampant inequality that permeates our shores, and how exploitative companies and people continue to sell us ideals that we should not want and — in all honesty -– that are not good for us.

Every time the season comes around, I look at my relatives overextend themselves; not only physically, but financially. Nothing is good enough, and one always needs more, because Christmas is unfortunately not largely a time of family and friends anymore, but rather one of material gains.

I stopped celebrating Christmas when I saw one of my cousins work herself into a state of depression because she was not able to afford a new chair. I’ve long thought about that, and how she was remarkably sour for the rest of the season because she couldn’t get it; because, in her mind, there could be no Christmas without new possessions.

If I were to give anyone anything for Christmas, it would be what my best friend and the other people in my life have given me this year — hope in humanity and the chances of a better tomorrow, as clichéd as that may sound. I spent my Christmas Day eating bad airport food and being surrounded by strangers, but still being genuinely happy; because, while sitting there among those people waiting to go home to their families, I was reminded that it is not an entirely bad thing, and that even though it has largely become overshadowed, the root of it is still there, and that should count for something.

The world, I have long realized, is full of negativity and despair. As such, it is very easy to become disenchanted with everything and everyone; and often, if we don’t have help finding the hope within our realities, we may enter a loop of perpetual hostility and cynicism.

While my pessimism still gets the better of me sometimes, I’ve realized, over the past few days, that we need to continue actively seeking the good in the world, even if its amount is miniscule at best. We should never become so tired that we are willing to completely denounce it, because, by doing that, we are just solidifying the very things we do not want to see.