Christ­mas has nev­er been some­thing I sim­ply ob­served. It has al­ways been some­thing I en­tered, al­most like step­ping in­to a feel­ing rather than a sea­son. Maybe it’s be­cause, grow­ing up blind, every ex­pe­ri­ence was shaped more by at­mos­phere than by ap­pear­ance. While oth­er peo­ple talk about the lights and dec­o­ra­tions they re­mem­ber, my mem­o­ry be­gins some­where dif­fer­ent. For me, it be­gins in the sound the world makes when De­cem­ber ar­rives.

At the School for Blind Chil­dren in San­ta Cruz, the sound of Christ­mas came ear­ly. We could feel the shift in en­er­gy long be­fore any­one said, “Christ­mas is com­ing.”

As soon as De­cem­ber touched the cal­en­dar, we were singing car­ols. There was some­thing al­most mag­i­cal about the way our voic­es gath­ered in those rooms. We weren’t try­ing to sound per­fect; we were just chil­dren, full of an­tic­i­pa­tion, singing be­cause it made us feel like part of some­thing big­ger.

Look­ing back, what I re­mem­ber most isn’t the songs them­selves but the to­geth­er­ness of it all. The way our voic­es blend­ed; the way a sim­ple song could make the whole school feel warmer. I re­mem­ber how the teach­ers tried to keep us fo­cused, but the ex­cite­ment al­ways won. There was this sense that some­thing won­der­ful was com­ing, even if we couldn’t see it.

Dec­o­rat­ing the Christ­mas tree at school was one of those small tra­di­tions that felt huge to us. We didn’t just hang or­na­ments; we dis­cov­ered them. We’d pass the dec­o­ra­tions from hand to hand, de­scrib­ing how they felt. Smooth plas­tic, tex­tured stars, soft rib­bons, the slight­ly scratchy sur­face of tin­sel. When we fi­nal­ly placed them on the tree, we did it care­ful­ly, as if ar­rang­ing mem­o­ries in­stead of ob­jects. And when every­thing was done, we’d stand close, touch­ing the branch­es light­ly, feel­ing the weight of the or­na­ments and imag­in­ing the glow every­one talked about. Even with­out sight, we knew it was beau­ti­ful be­cause we felt that beau­ty in our own way.

The Christ­mas lun­cheon was al­ways one of the most an­tic­i­pat­ed days of the year. The ex­cite­ment of choos­ing which par­ent to in­vite was a whole event in it­self. I can still re­mem­ber the ner­vous­ness, that flut­ter­ing feel­ing in my stom­ach as we wait­ed to per­form the songs we prac­ticed for so long. But what stands out now is the warmth in the room: the sound of par­ents mur­mur­ing, chairs shift­ing, qui­et laugh­ter, the way the ap­plause washed over us like a soft wave. There was a kind of pride in that space too. Even though we were chil­dren, we felt it.

Christ­mas at home was a dif­fer­ent kind of mag­ic. Help­ing my moth­er dec­o­rate our tree was one of my favourite things. I could al­ways tell Christ­mas was tru­ly here when she brought out the box of dec­o­ra­tions and those mu­si­cal Christ­mas lights that played their lit­tle melodies over and over. Those lights, with their cheer­ful, slight­ly tin­ny tunes, were part of the sound­track of my child­hood. I didn’t need to see them flash­ing; hear­ing them was more than enough.

De­cem­ber at home meant a house that felt fuller than usu­al. Full of smells, full of en­er­gy, full of pos­si­bil­i­ty. There was the scent of spices drift­ing from the kitchen, the soft­ness of new cur­tains, the smell of new plas­tic, and that feel­ing that some­thing spe­cial was hap­pen­ing even on or­di­nary days.

And, of course, the Christ­mas movies. To this day, Home Alone still has a di­rect line to my sense of nos­tal­gia. The mo­ment I hear those open­ing notes, I’m trans­port­ed back to evenings curled up, laugh­ing at the same scenes year af­ter year. It didn’t mat­ter that I knew the sto­ry by heart; the com­fort was in the fa­mil­iar­i­ty.

Some of the most vivid mem­o­ries I have are of Christ­mas at my grand­moth­er’s house. All the cousins gath­ered to­geth­er, wait­ing not very pa­tient­ly for the left­over black cake bat­ter. That bowl felt like trea­sure. We would scrape the sides as if we were res­cu­ing some­thing pre­cious, shar­ing spoon­fuls, get­ting our fin­gers sticky, mak­ing a mess that no one seemed to mind. Those mo­ments, full of laugh­ter, warmth, and un­com­pli­cat­ed joy, are some of the mem­o­ries I re­turn to most of­ten. They re­mind me of a time when life was sim­ple and love was loud.

As I’ve grown old­er, Christ­mas has evolved. Work­ing at the T&T Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion has added a new di­men­sion to the sea­son. Now, Christ­mas isn’t on­ly about re­mem­ber­ing what it felt like as a child; it’s about be­ing part of some­thing mean­ing­ful in the present. The work we do dur­ing this time, prepar­ing ham­pers, check­ing on clients, and mak­ing sure the chil­dren we serve re­ceive sup­port, brings a sense of pur­pose that deep­ens the sea­son.

And when you hear the grat­i­tude in some­one’s voice, or you know you’ve made a dif­fi­cult time a lit­tle eas­i­er, it brings a qui­et kind of ful­fil­ment that feels like its own ver­sion of Christ­mas mag­ic.

In many ways, Christ­mas has be­come a bridge for me. It’s a link be­tween the child I was, full of an­tic­i­pa­tion and in­no­cence, and the woman I am now, shaped by ex­pe­ri­ence, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and a de­sire to give back.

What Christ­mas means to me now is more lay­ered than it used to be. It’s the mu­sic of my child­hood and the out­reach of my adult life. It’s the feel of or­na­ments in my hands and the knowl­edge that some­one else’s hol­i­day might be a lit­tle brighter be­cause of some­thing I helped with. It’s the com­fort of tra­di­tion, the warmth of fam­i­ly, the joy of giv­ing, and the qui­et mo­ments of re­flec­tion that come when the year draws to a close.

I may not see Christ­mas through the same lens as oth­ers, but I ex­pe­ri­ence it ful­ly through sound, touch, scent, mem­o­ry, and con­nec­tion. Per­haps that’s why it has re­mained so mean­ing­ful through­out my life. Christ­mas, for me, is not about what can be seen; it’s about what can be felt. It is the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of every warm mo­ment, every shared ex­pe­ri­ence, every song, every act of kind­ness.

Christ­mas is love, in all its forms.

And that, more than any­thing else, is what keeps the sea­son shin­ing for me.

This col­umn is sup­plied in con­junc­tion with the T&T Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion

Head­quar­ters: 118 Duke Street, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

Email: ttb­wa1914@gmail.com

Phone: (868) 624-4675

What­sApp: (868) 395-3086