State of Disconnected People on Christmas

December always arrives like it has somewhere else to be. It shows up late, already stressed, coat half on, half off, phone buzzing, apologizing while absolutely not slowing down. And suddenly everything is final. Final weeks, final chances, final invoices, final dinners, final coffees that somehow never happen. I look at my calendar and it looks back at me like a to-do list written by someone who hates me but believes in my potential.

There are people I meant to see. People I really meant to see. People I even texted, which is already a big emotional commitment in December. Let’s catch up before the year ends. A beautiful lie we tell each other with loving intentions and absolutely no logistical plan. And then there are the projects. Half-finished, overthought, under-rested. Tabs open like tiny panic windows. Documents with deadlines in their titles. Talks I wanted to have, sentences I rehearsed in my head while brushing my teeth, arguments I softened, ideas I postponed into a vague, foggy January-shaped promise.

Everything gets louder. Emails. Notifications. End-of-year reflections. Just circling back. The emotional equivalent of music swelling and swelling until you are technically still in the scene but you cannot hear a single clear sentence anymore. December is not a month. It’s a noise.

And Christmas, poor-poor thing, has been dressed up as a marketing intern and sent out to shout at us from every surface. Buy this. Feel that. Be grateful now. Hurry up and slow down at the same time. Love harder. Consume gently. Relax aggressively. No wonder people are tense. No wonder everyone looks slightly haunted in the supermarket. I notice it in myself too. The rushiness. The micro-anger. The impatience at ads, at jingles, at the idea that joy can be scheduled between two deadlines. The strange guilt of not being present enough while being present everywhere. I catch myself thinking about three things while standing in one place, and feeling bad about all four.

Disconnected, but in a very social way.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I find myself in a strange split-screen existence. Being a dad in December means standing in the noise next to someone who does not decode it at all. Someone who does not see the rush, the campaigns, the invisible pressure. They look at a light. A reflection. A badly wrapped box. And they say, with total certainty, this feels like magic. Not seasonal magic. Not curated magic. Just the kind that exists without explanation. It stops me for a second. Makes me feel both wiser and more foolish at the same time. Like maybe the month is not broken. Maybe I am just very good at overloading it.

And then there is being a lover in December. A role that feels tender and slightly exposed. Trying to keep the two of us safe inside the noise. Safe from tired tones, from turning logistics into distance, from letting stress impersonate honesty. I want to be gentle here. I want to be present in a way that does not require planning. Sometimes I manage. Sometimes love looks smaller than intended, quieter than planned. A hand on a back. A shared silence that feels like agreement. A look that says I know this is a lot, but I am here, and I am not going anywhere.

Everything keeps getting louder. Calendars fill up. Expectations wiggle. Emotional deadlines appear out of nowhere. As if warmth has a delivery date. As if connection can be completed, checked off, and wrapped before the year runs out. Still, under the grind and the gift guides and the forced sparkle, there is something softer trying to survive. A tired kindness. A shared exhaustion. A quiet solidarity between people who are doing their best with limited energy and very full days.

Maybe December isn’t asking us to finish everything. Maybe it’s just showing us what mattered enough to remain unfinished. The talks that need more time. The messages that deserve better words. The moments that refuse to be rushed. They are not failures. They are proof of care. So if you’re rushing, or angry at the ads, or quietly sad without a clean explanation, you’re not broken. You’re just very human inside a very loud month.

I hope the coming weeks give you luck. Warmth. A few moments where the noise softens and you can feel where you are, who you are with, and why it matters. I hope you find presence in small, ordinary places, and that it stays with you longer than the season itself.

Just hang in there.