The Christmas Morning

 

Christmas is standing at the door, like a guest who has arrived early and is tapping softly, not wanting to be ignored.And here I am, wondering what to bake. I didn’t soak any dry fruits this year. My health, like a stubborn season, never quite turned in my favour. Yesterday there was already a cake on the table — tout chocolat, they said — dark and dressed up with roses of ganache, trying very hard to look festive. Today the neighbour arrived with a panettone, warm with generosity. Still, the house feels like it needs something of mine.

Last night, sleep played hide and seek. While I tossed and turned, ideas gathered quietly like crumbs on a plate. Should I make the simple dry fruits cake Maa used to bake in a pressure cooker — humble, dependable, tasting of home? Or a moist orange cake with olive oil, bright as winter sunlight slipping through curtains?Time, however, is running like a child late for school. Ishaan has already put in his Christmas Eve request — biryani for lunch — rich, fragrant, demanding attention. The day is packed tight: swimming lessons, piano lessons, people arriving to inspect the ACs. The clock watches me with raised eyebrows.And yet, somewhere between duties and decisions, the desire to bake lingers. Like a quiet prayer. Like tying a ribbon around an ordinary day and calling it celebration.

In the end, I baked nothing.

The day came at me like a crowded street—voices overlapping, hours bumping into each other. There was too much to be done, and sanity felt like the most urgent thing to hold on to before Christmas arrived. So I chose the essential. I made biryani—slow, fragrant, grounding—and quietly let the cake go. The oven stayed cold, almost relieved, like it understood. Christmas morning arrived gently, barefoot and unannounced. I made cappuccinos for everyone, the milk frothing up like small clouds, the coffee smelling of warmth and pause. From the cake bought earlier, I cut thick slices of chocolate—dark, soft, generous. It wasn’t what I grew up with. But life, like a river, rarely flows in the same shape twice.

And this felt… enough.

I realised then that my son does not need to see his mother as a warrior dressed like a princess—smiling through exhaustion, performing strength like a costume. He needs to see something truer. That letting go is also a form of courage. That sometimes love looks like choosing rest over tradition, presence over perfection.So on the Christmas morning, we sipped coffee and ate chocolate cake. The day smiled at us softly. Christmas, like a person, didn’t mind the missing cake—it pulled a chair closer and stayed anyway. And in that quiet, sweet moment, I understood: celebration doesn’t always come from what we make, but from what we allow ourselves to release.