Joy to the World—Eventually

Christmas always brings me home.

Not just to the house, but to the corners we don’t visit the rest of the year—the cabinet that smells like dust and pine cleaner, the room where forgotten things gather because throwing them away feels like erasing proof that we once believed in something.

This year, while unpacking old decorations, I found a small box tucked behind tinsel and old lights. Inside were letters. Folded unevenly. Some smudged in pencil, others neat in pen. All addressed to Santa.

I sat on the floor and opened them one by one, as if the years were waiting their turn.

The first letters were light and childlike. Requests for toys, for sweets, and for happiness that seemed tangible. Even then, the edges of questions were forming—small cracks in innocence that would grow into awareness, anger, and grief.

2010

At five, my Christmas wishes were simple. Toys, candies, or something colorful to unwrap.

Dear Santa, please po, I want a doll.

Outside the church where my family attended Simbang Gabi, a boy around my age sat on the steps. No slippers. No jacket. His hand was out, not demanding—just open.

That night, I went back to my letter.

Please po, make him happy too.

I didn’t know the word inequality yet, but even then, more than one in four Filipinos lived below the poverty line and the struggle for sufficient food and basic needs was deeply felt across families. 

Why did my Christmas involve choices, while theirs involved survival?

2013

By eight, I had learned to notice patterns. Some kids never left the streets. Some families never seemed to have enough—no matter how hard they worked, they were still sleeping on cardboard. Children learned how to ask for spare change before they could read. Music played loudly enough to drown out the discomfort of seeing them. Christmas felt louder then—almost defensive.

Dear Santa, please po, can you give food to everyone? Sana next Christmas, may pagkain at bahay na lahat.

It felt like a reasonable request. The country had malls bigger than barangays. Restaurants threw away food. Christmas tables overflowed. And yet families in poor communities resorted to eating leftovers scavenged from the garbage—locally called pagpag, which means they literally shake off the dirt, because there were simply no other ways to survive.

So why were there still children begging for coins instead of opening presents? Why were there people—entire families—relying on pagpag just to survive, while others prepared noche buena they could barely finish?

2017

I was twelve when Christmas started sounding different on the news.

The words were sharp: nanlaban, adik, drug war. Numbers climbed faster than parol lights went up. People said it was necessary. People said it was for safety. People said not to ask too many questions. What was once presented as a campaign for safety began to sound like a catalogue of bodies and excuses. The brutal drug war entered its second year in 2017, and over 12,000 lives were claimed. Among the names that made the country look twice was 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, a teenager killed by police in Caloocan during an anti-drug operation. Just a few years older than me, he had begged to be allowed to go home because he had a test the next day—a simple, ordinary worry that anyone walking the streets could have had. 

That year, I stopped listing gifts and started writing questions instead. 

Please po, why were people dying? And why did it feel like no one was afraid of being responsible?

If one victim’s death could leave such a mark, why were so many others lost without answers? If killing could be explained away so easily, what did justice actually mean? 

2019

At fourteen, Christmas arrived in a hospital room.

My brother got sick—not suddenly, but slowly and quietly—the way illness creeps in when you least expect it. Hospitals were overwhelming. Medicine was expensive. The pandemic made everything harder: fewer beds, longer lines, more fear. Every bill felt like a countdown. Christmas arrived anyway, unbothered. Lights stayed up. Songs stayed cheerful. People told us to stay hopeful.

It was during these years that the Philippines passed the Universal Health Care Act—a law meant to make access to health services a right, not a privilege. But the reality on the ground told a different story. In 2019, even as lawmakers touted UHC, analysis showed that expanded health care services still lacked up to ₱170 billion in funding to reach their goals, with only a fraction of that money actually appropriated. Basic access to care—supposed to be protected under UHC—felt out of reach for too many.

I wrote carefully that year.

Please po, make my brother better. Sana next Christmas, magaling na siya at sa bahay na kami magpapasko.

And then, something angrier followed.

If healthcare is a right, why does it feel like a favor? If life is sacred, why does it come with a price tag?

2022

By seventeen, I stopped believing that growing older meant growing wiser as a country.

We survived storms that erased homes overnight. We watched people beg for rescue, for relief, for answers. We listened to the same promises recycled every December—help is coming, change is coming, next year will be better.

My letters were no longer hopeful. They were observant.

Why do we normalize suffering so easily?  Why do we celebrate resilience instead of fixing what breaks people?

2024

By nineteen, I had stopped pretending confusion was innocence. A year after I stepped into adulthood, the country still felt stuck in childhood mistakes.

I saw how silence protected systems. How comfort made complicity easier. How Christmas often acted as a pause button—on outrage, on accountability, on urgency. I saw how Santa always arrived on time. Justice never did. Gifts appeared every year. Accountability did not.

Adulthood, I realized, was not just about age—it was about seeing clearly how broken systems shape lives. Christmas felt hollow that year, not because of missing gifts, but because the country seemed frozen in a pause between disaster and accountability. 

Yet I still wrote. Habit has a way of surviving belief.

2025

With tears in my eyes, I grabbed a piece of paper and my pen. I began to write again. Only this time, the letter is not folded or tucked away. This time, the letter is in this article.

These letters remind me that waiting is not enough. Remembering without change is not enough. That joy cannot hide the cracks, and celebration cannot excuse silence.

Just days before Christmas, the Supreme Court affirmed the murder convictions of three police officers who killed Kian delos Santos, upholding their sentences of up to 40 years in prison. It was a rare moment when the wheels of justice turned —slowly, painfully, and late—for a boy who should have been alive, who had a test to take, who could have been any of us.

Kian’s case became a reminder that justice can be served, even belatedly. But one case does not erase the thousands of others whose names are still unwritten in verdicts. One conviction does not fix the systems that allowed their deaths. As advocates note, while the conviction of officers is a step, the call for accountability must extend beyond just the guns that fired the shots to the policies and leaders who enabled them.

So here is the most honest question this Christmas:

If one conviction can finally happen, why haven’t many more?If one family can find some closure, why are so many still waiting?

Have we accepted that some lives are worth justice and others are not? Have we grown so numb that we cheer one court ruling but still tolerate systemic impunity?

This article is this year’s letter—not to Santa, but to us.

To the readers who celebrate under lights, while others long for basic dignity.

To the leaders who should answer for neglect and corruption.

To the citizens who have the power to demand accountability.

I hope this letter reaches you. I hope it reminds you that injustice does not pause for holidays. I hope it reminds you that the questions of the past—why children go hungry, why lives are treated as expendable, why promises are empty—are still ours to ask, and ours to act on. I hope it reminds you that leaders must answer, that citizens must speak, and that accountability cannot wait.

I closed the box.

And for the first time in years, I felt the letters reach beyond paper—into the people reading, into the conversation, into the change that will not wait for another December.

Article: Xyra Caryl Zaleta

Illustrations: Kaiser Aaron Caya