Christmas, Performance and the Things We Don’t Say

Dec 25, 2025 News

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By Janelle A.N Persaud

(Kaieteur News) – For many years, Christmas had been a difficult season for me to celebrate. Somewhere along the way, the version of Christmas I knew quietly collapsed and never quite reassembled itself in the same way again.

When I was a child, Christmas felt magical. My mother would quite literally break up the house days before Christmas and on Christmas morning, we would wake up to a whole new house; new blinds, decorations, a tree, wax polished floors and sometimes even newly painted walls. Then one Christmas morning, when I was about twelve years old, I woke up and my grandmother, who I slept next to, was not there. The house was still a mess. Granny had been hospitalised. Later that day, my mother came home with an unwrapped toy for my little brother. And that was it.

That day, something quietly shifted in me. I realised, perhaps for the first time, that what I thought Christmas was depended entirely on people holding it together. And when the people could not, the magic did not survive on its own. Christmas was never quite the same again. I never became the adult who tried to create that magic. “Santa” never got the credit for the gifts I got for my son because I had worked really hard to afford it.  For many other Guyanese families, Christmas is just as fragile. It is held together by significant effort, great sacrifice, and often by money that barely stretches far enough. And when something goes wrong; illness, loss or unemployment, that illusion cracks. Perhaps that is why we cling so tightly to the performance of Christmas, as a people.

The food must be nuff. The drinks must flow. The music must be loud. Celebration, in excess, becomes a way of insisting that joy exists, even when the underlying conditions of life remain hard. Christmas becomes a sanctioned moment of release. Another reason to over consume and another moment where survival dresses itself up as celebration. Alcohol, in particular, has become a central feature of how we mark joy in Guyana; we are almost always looking for the next excuse.  We drink to celebrate, we drink to cope, we drink to forget, and we drink to endure. Don’t get me wrong, people are 100 percent allowed to celebrate, however they choose. They are allowed to release after a long, hard year; whether that year has been defined by struggle or by success.

Alongside that celebration, there is also something else happening.

There is pressure, performance and this quiet insistence that one must look okay, be okay and prove okay. And in a society shaped by inequality, that pressure lands unevenly. Some people celebrate freely. Others celebrate anxiously. So, while many of us enjoy, others are coping and surviving. These big year end parties to me is where the greatest show takes place. In recent years, I’ve found myself stepping back from these events because I no longer have the patience for the performance that sometimes surrounds them. The dressing up, the appearances, the quiet competition to signal that we are doing fine. I simply cannot anymore.

I find that this season is one that also exposes uncomfortable truths about inequality.

This year much of the national conversation was on whether people “behaved themselves” to receive a cash grant in time for Christmas. I read too of the disappointment that it would now be given in 2026. For many, that money is simply symbolic. For others, however, it is the difference between food on the table and doing without. Between giving a child something small and giving nothing at all.

That difference matters.

It reminds us that while we often speak about Christmas as a shared national experience, it is not experienced equally. What feels like a bonus to one household feels like survival to another. And no amount of seasonal cheer can flatten that reality. And yet, even within these inequalities, Christmas in Guyana has never been a season of doom and gloom.

When I recall the “Guyanese Christmas” I think of laughter and families coming together, even when money is tight. It was Pepperpot that stretches for days, and black cake, sorrel and ginger beer prepared with care. It used to be your neighbours coming over and the children playing “dolly house” with their new toys (I’m not sure this is still a thing). Music playing somewhere nearby. It really was one of the few times in the year when people paused long enough to be together.

I remember my grandmother soaking fruits months in advance for black cake. I remember five-finger wine prepared long before December came around. Christmas really was something people made, not one that they bought. All that said, this season for me ultimately leads back to Jesus Christ. The truth at the centre of the story: that God entered the world in human form; quietly, vulnerably, without spectacle and He lived among the poor and the overlooked. That He showed us what love looks like when it is rooted in service, justice, and compassion. He provided a blueprint of how to live righteously and that He died so that humanity might have a chance at abundant life in heaven yes, but also here on earth.

These are the lens through which I see the world and choose to understand Christmas.

Because when I look at the example of Jesus, I am reminded that life was never meant to be about performance or accumulation or indeed proving worth through appearance. It is about how we treat each other, uplift the vulnerable, live with integrity, and how we resist systems that strip people of dignity.

That is why Christmas still matters to me, even after the illusions fall away. I am reminded to pause and strip back the noise and to celebrate joy without excess. To lime with your tribe without pretence and to give without needing recognition. During this season, I hope we remember that dignity, love, and community are the actual point. So, whether Christmas for you is about faith, family, tradition, or simply rest after a long year, I hope we allow ourselves to slow down enough to ask what truly sustains us. And whether the lives we are building; individually and collectively, reflect the values we claim to celebrate.

For me, that reflection begins and ends with Christ.

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• Christmas, Christmas spirit, Janelle Persaud, performance, toy

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