Light the Candle Anyway

I like Christmas.

I like the lights strung too tightly across porches, the decorations that appear overnight as if the neighborhood agreed on a quiet truce with darkness. I like the music—some of it at least—and the movies most of all. The old ones. The ones that arrive every year like familiar witnesses, reminding you that time keeps moving whether you’re ready or not.

I genuinely like these things.

All of them.

And still, something is missing.

There’s supposed to be a warmth that comes with this season, a fullness that settles somewhere in the chest, a feeling people speak about as if it’s inevitable—like snowfall or sunrise. But for me, that space feels hollow. Not empty exactly. More like a room that remembers being lived in, but hasn’t been occupied in a long time.

I’ve noticed that absence more acutely as the years pass. Christmas doesn’t hurt.

It just… echoes.

The Space Between

For a long time, I responded to that hollowness by quietly opting out.

No decorations.

No tree.

No deliberate effort to invite the season inside my walls.

Not out of bitterness—just a kind of emotional economy. Why set a place at the table for a feeling that might not show up?

But this year, something shifted.

Not dramatically. Not with a revelation or a promise to feel differently. Just a small, stubborn thought that kept returning, dressed up as a borrowed line from a movie I’ve carried with me for decades:

If I build it, it will come.

So this year, I’m decorating.

Not because I suddenly feel festive.

Not because joy has arrived early and knocked politely.

But because sometimes hope isn’t about how you feel—it’s about what you do anyway.

Choosing Hope Without Demanding Joy

There’s an unspoken rule around the holidays: you’re supposed to feel something specific.

Gratitude.

Warmth.

Cheer.

A sense of completion.

And if you don’t, it can feel like a personal failure—like you missed a memo everyone else received.

But Christmas Eve, if you really look at it, isn’t about arrival.

It’s about waiting.

It’s the night before. The space between. The moment when nothing has happened yet, and that’s precisely the point. Christmas Eve doesn’t ask you to open gifts, sing loudly, or prove anything.

It asks you to sit with anticipation—however fractured that anticipation might be.

For some people, that anticipation is joyful.

For others, it’s complicated.

For many, it’s heavy with memory, absence, and unfinished grief.

And still, the night remains.

The Candle

That’s where the Candle comes in.

Lighting a candle isn’t a declaration of happiness. It isn’t a performance of belief or a promise that everything is fine. It’s an acknowledgment of darkness—and a refusal to let it have the final word.

A candle doesn’t banish the night.

It simply says:

I’m still here.

The Quiet Work of Building Something First

I haven’t decorated my home in years. Not because I hate the season, but because I didn’t want to confront the gap between what Christmas is supposed to feel like and what it actually feels like inside me.

Decorating means effort.

It means intention.

It means admitting you want something to happen—even if you’re not sure it will.

This year, I’m doing it anyway.

Not as a ritual of joy, but as an act of survival.

I’m hanging lights not because my heart is full, but because it isn’t. I’m placing decorations not to summon nostalgia, but to acknowledge that I’m still capable of making space. Still willing to try. Still open enough to say, maybe.

Maybe warmth doesn’t arrive on its own.

Maybe it needs scaffolding.

Maybe it needs permission.

Or maybe it never comes at all—and the effort still matters.

Because the real loss isn’t failing to feel the right thing.

It’s giving up on the possibility of feeling anything.

Holding Space

Christmas Eve doesn’t need you to be joyful.

It needs you to be present.

It needs you to recognize that choosing hope doesn’t always look like celebration. Sometimes it looks like lighting a candle in a room that feels too quiet and letting that small flame testify on your behalf.

Sometimes hope is understated.

Sometimes it’s tired.

Sometimes it shows up without confidence.

But it shows up.

And tonight, that’s enough.

If your heart feels full, celebrate.

If it feels heavy, you’re not broken.

If it feels hollow, you’re not alone.

Light the Candle anyway.

Not because you’re sure something will come—but because the act itself is a declaration:

I am still willing to make room.

And on Christmas Eve, that may be the most honest form of hope there is.

Kyle J. Hayes

kylehayesblog.com

Please like, comment, and share

Resources for Hard Times

If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

👉 Resources for Hard Times