The Light We Carry at Christmas.

In Colombo, December nights never get quite as cold as the ones you envisage after Christmas movies. The air here hums with its own humid press, carrying the scent of coriander tea and the remote crackle of fireworks, long before midnight down Marine drive. There are no snow-dressed pines or frost-laced windows here, but still, the season slips into our lives like an old friend dropped off too soon on a forgotten sidewalk. Not with a bold knock, but with the gentle nudge of something familiar, something soft; a light we carry.

These nights smell of roasted peanuts from roadside boutiques, the burnt tang of kerosene lamps, and the sharp bite of lime squeezed over kadala at the top of Ramakrishna Avenue. The season whispers through the choking train ride and the metallic screech of a bus braking too hard near the Bambalapitiya junction, to the sound of church bells cutting through the chaos like a promise too bold to speak. It is here, in these raw and unvarnished corners, that Christmas takes root, not glittering but glowing carefully, like water in the dark.

This light isn’t the kind that smudges your sight or flashes in vivacity. It’s the mellow, steady glow of a single candle lit in a power cut, the kind that doesn’t ask for attention but still fills the room without a sound. It’s the moment when someone offers you the last piece of Bibikkan without a word, or the way your mother’s hands linger on your shoulder a heartbeat longer than usual as you pass each other in the kitchen. It’s found in quieter corners, the creak of an old photo album opened after years, the weight of a long-awaited hug that feels like it could stitch your little bits together forever. These moments, soft as they are, carry something that can’t be bought or boxed.

They carry hope. They carry love.

The light rests in the way a girl waits at the Pelawatta bus stand, her faded skirt caught in a blow of air, a little crocheted bag swaying on her arm, the shape of a single pressed flower showing through its weave. She leans against the corroded pole, glancing down the road until a familiar Maruti hums into view, her chosen family’s ayya, arriving with a grin that feels like coming home. It lingers in the hands of a grandmother, stitching scraps of old saree into a pavada, her trembling fingers threading memories into every uneven seam. And it blooms in the quiet miracle of a girl handing over a gift to the one she’s adored from afar, a silent proclamation, as soft as snowfall, that whispers, ‘You are not impossible to love.’

The streets of Colombo murmur their own verses during Christmas. Near Borella, the cemetery caretaker knots his sarong tighter against the restless evening breeze, his hands calloused and aching from a day spent raking over the silences of unremembered graves. In the shadowed flats of Dematagoda, children ignite crackers with trembling fingers, their laughter spilling out onto the damp asphalt. And somewhere deeper in the heart of the city, a shop assistant, ready to fold under the weight of endless hours, splurges on a malu paan and a plain tea from the tiny shop in the corner. The steam rises gently, softening the sharp edges of his exhaustion, as he silently resolves that this will be his last Christmas in this version of his life.

These moments, fleeting and unambiguous, are where the light nestles, in the grooves of ordinary days, etched like the last stubborn bits of cheese kottu scraped from a sizzling hotplate, leaving behind a lingering, quiet warmth.

In a weathered cottage by the cathedral, where the walls carry the scent of salt from too many monsoons, an old couple live out their quiet rituals. Each evening, they set out for a walk, in matching Bata sandals, their soles worn thin as the stories they’ve shared. Their hands drift close enough to trace the outlines of each other’s palms but never quite meet, love, in its quietest language, doesn’t always need to touch. Theirs is a kind of faith no hymn could replicate, a light that endures without asking for applause, steady as the rhythm of their steps on rain-slicked cobblestones.

Do you think of the first time you saw the Christmas star, leaning precariously over your borrowed tree? Its glow was uneven, throwing crooked shadows across walls scuffed by years of living, but it turned our little room into something sacred. The decorations, mismatched baubles, frayed garlands, were far from perfect, yet they carried holiness beyond neat and rehearsed prayers, their edges polished until they felt like glass: fragile, cold, and distant. But this light, this raw, uneven, glowing light, was real. It was messy, alive, and holy in a way in which prayers at Christmas mass could never be.

This light seeps in, like sunlight through the crevice of a shuttered window. It curls up beside you in the moments you don’t think to look, like the warmth of your father’s old flannel shirt draped over the chair you once fought to sit in. It’s the shine of oil-slicked streets after a monsoon, reflecting a patchwork of stars that you can only see if you tilt your head just right. It’s the unspoken language of bodies brushing in passing, a fleeting spark, unnoticed yet unmistakable.

But carrying light isn’t always easy. Sometimes, it feels like trying to hold onto the last thread of daylight as the sky swallows the sun, the fading warmth slipping through your fingers. And yet, we carry it. We carry it because we must, like a traveller clutching a map, even when they’re lost. Because somewhere, in the midst of our exhaustion and discreet grief, there’s a flicker of hope; a stubborn, pulsing belief that this season, this life, is still worth the journey. It’s in the borrowed bangles on a little girl’s wrist, clinking softly like a prayer as she twirls to "Jingle Bells" in the schoolyard, her joy contagious despite the weight of the world she can’t yet understand.

This year, a fair few find ourselves noticing the light more. It’s in the smile of the boutique owner, who slips an extra biscuit into my tea, as if it's a confidential offering, a gesture meant for no one else but me. It’s in the bus conductor’s nod, his smile slow and unhurried, a warmth that doesn’t ask for anything in return, like the kind of gentleness you only find in the spaces between crowded streets. It’s in the girl who, without a word, reaches for a heavy bag as she sits while another stands, her stillness somehow making the world look a little more patient. And it’s in the meter taxi uncle who, as if guided by some unseen hand, leaned back with a grin and said, “Everything will work out for you. Good luck at your interview,” as though he were giving me a secret, tucked between the ‘ghhhrr’ of his engine and the dust swirling in the air. These moments, soft, unspoken, and often unmarked, is the kind of light that doesn’t burn bright, but lingers in the corners of your days, a reminder under the universe’s breath that even when the world feels dense, there’s always something that moves us forward.

At St. Anthony’s shrine, candles flicker not just for the departed but for those left behind their resilience a quiet testament to the strength we carry as a nation. In post war classrooms, there is a tentative friendship forming between Tamil and Sinhalese children, not in grand reconciliatory gestures, but in the act of sharing a Tipitip packet during intervals. These, too, are lights, small, stubborn, and continually hopeful.

Sometimes, the light flickers, thin as thread, ready to break. It’s the ache of a child staring at a toy through a glass window they know they’ll never open. It’s the crumpled Christmas card you meant to send but left at the bottom of a drawer, the words too heavy to finish writing. It’s the taste of kiri pani that’s just a little too sweet, the kind that makes your throat ache but reminds you of appachchi’s hand coaxing you to take one more bite. It’s the blink of hope at the edge of despair, the warmth of love that persists even when it’s strained.

But even in its fragility, the light persists. It clings like the scent of cardamom on a warm breeze, invisible yet everywhere. It whispers in the spaces between words, in the silences we don’t dare to fill. It’s the lone lantern swaying on a fishing boat at sea, its flame steady against the night, promising to guide someone home.

Because that’s what this light is, it’s not pristine or perfect. It’s not the blazing sun; it’s the glow of fireflies in a jar, flickering in time with a heartbeat that refuses to still. It’s the quiet defiance of something that knows it doesn’t need to be noticed to matter. It’s a bruised mango wrapped in newspaper at a market, carried home with the reverence of a gift. And maybe that’s why we carry it. Not because it’s simple, but because it’s real. Because in this tangled mess of life, this city of noise and dust and love, the light finds us in the places we least expect and reminds us that we are still here. Still holding on. Still twinkling and making another smile in the in-betweens: the breath held before a cracker’s boom and the echo it leaves behind, the pause between raindrops and the rush of water that follows.

So, this Christmas, this author hopes her reader finds their light. In the laughter of a child chasing bubbles in the garden. In the first sip of sweet, milky tea after a long day. In the warmth of a hand that reaches out for yours, even when words fail. And this is written in hopes of you carrying it, as we all do, through the cracks, through the chaos, through everything that makes us human.

But still, we carry it. That light.

And in Colombo, when the people are restful, and the night is finally still, it’s all that remains.

In Colombo, we carry this light not just for ourselves, but for others, passing it like a mumbled secret, letting it bloom where we least expect. It finds its genesis in soundless moments, spreading softly, like the first light of a Christmas dawn splattered over the horizon.