I've always been the one who is more enthusiastic about Christmas

Host: The city had dressed itself in light, a carnival of colors and motion flickering across the cold December night. Snowflakes swirled through the air like drifting ash from a fire made of joy. The streets glowed with the soft hum of string lights, their reflections trembling in rain-slick pavement.

Inside a small apartment above a bakery, two figures sat by the window — Jack and Jeeny — the faint glow of Christmas lights painting their faces in alternating shades of red and gold.

The room was cluttered with boxes, garlands, tangled lights, and the faint scent of cinnamon. A cheap radio played a carol slightly off-key, as if even the music were shivering.

Jack sat cross-legged on the floor, trying — and failing — to untangle a string of lights, while Jeeny hummed along with the music, smiling like someone who had decided the world was worth loving tonight, no matter how much it had broken her before.

Jeeny: “Christine and the Queens once said — ‘I’ve always been the one who is more enthusiastic about Christmas than my family. I regress to a child state, chanting carols.’”

Jack: “That explains a lot.”

Jeeny: (laughs) “You mean my obsession with garlands and glitter?”

Jack: “I mean your ability to turn a gloomy Tuesday night into a children’s movie.”

Jeeny: “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Jack: “It’s… confusing.”

Jeeny: “Confusing?”

Jack: “Yeah. You’re thirty, Jeeny. You pay taxes, you argue politics, and yet you’re out here sticking fake snow to the window like an eight-year-old. You don’t see the irony?”

Jeeny: “No. I see joy. You should try it sometime.”

Host: Jack snorted softly, the kind of sound that could be mistaken for laughter or defense. The light string flashed once in his hands, then went dark again. He muttered under his breath.

Jeeny watched him with that amused patience of someone who’s used to melting cynicism with warmth.

Jeeny: “You hate Christmas, don’t you?”

Jack: “I don’t hate it. I just don’t… buy into it.”

Jeeny: “What’s there to buy into? Lights, music, a little sugar, a little hope — that’s not a scam, that’s survival.”

Jack: “It’s pretense. People wrap themselves in tinsel to forget how lonely they are. They drown their guilt in gingerbread and call it joy.”

Jeeny: “You talk like Scrooge if he had a philosophy degree.”

Jack: “Scrooge was just honest before he was haunted.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you need your ghosts too, Jack.”

Host: The radio crackled softly; a choir began to sing Silent Night. Jeeny’s voice joined in — off-key but radiant, her tone carrying the warmth of memory and defiance. Jack watched her for a moment, a faint flicker of something unreadable crossing his face.

Jack: “You really believe in this stuff?”

Jeeny: “In what — magic?”

Jack: “In pretending everything’s okay for one night.”

Jeeny: “That’s not pretending. That’s choosing.”

Jack: “Choosing what?”

Jeeny: “Light. Even if it’s fake. Even if it’s from a dollar-store string.”

Host: Her eyes shimmered in the glow, alive with something that felt older than her — a childlike hope reborn through the body of an adult who had learned how hard the world could be.

Jack leaned back against the couch, rubbing his temples.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, I used to love Christmas too. The smell of pine, the wrapping paper, the feeling that the world might actually be good. But then you grow up, and the magic just… fades.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you stopped looking.”

Jack: “Or maybe I started seeing clearly.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You started confusing clarity with emptiness.”

Host: He looked at her, puzzled, and she smiled softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

Jeeny: “Being an adult doesn’t mean you stop believing. It just means you start choosing what’s worth believing in. I choose Christmas because it reminds me of the part of me that still knows how to hope — the part that sings before it thinks.”

Jack: “You regress to a child state, huh?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The only regression that heals.”

Host: The snow thickened outside, falling in slow, heavy flakes that blurred the streetlights into halos. Jeeny stood, walked to the window, and pressed her palm against the cold glass.

Jeeny: “You know what I love most about Christmas? It’s the one time the world collectively agrees to be kind — even if it’s artificial, even if it’s brief. For a few days, people try.”

Jack: “You make it sound like a miracle.”

Jeeny: “It is, in this world.”

Host: Jack watched her silhouette against the window, the faint red glow of the Christmas lights tracing her outline. The radio had moved on to another song — Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

He rose, walked to stand beside her. The city below was alive — laughter echoing from the street, the smell of roasted chestnuts wafting from the bakery, children tugging on parents’ coats, pointing at the snow.

Jack: “You ever wonder if we celebrate because we’re happy, or if we celebrate so we can remember how to be happy?”

Jeeny: “Both. The first is innocence. The second is courage.”

Jack: “And you think I’ve lost both?”

Jeeny: “I think you’ve misplaced them.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened. The reflection in the glass showed two figures — one lit by wonder, one shadowed by reason — side by side, both real.

Jeeny turned toward him, a faint smile curving her lips.

Jeeny: “You can’t logic your way out of needing joy, Jack.”

Jack: “You think joy’s something you can just… switch on?”

Jeeny: “No. But you can decide to make space for it.”

Jack: “And if it doesn’t show up?”

Jeeny: “Then you sing until it does.”

Host: She laughed, spinning suddenly toward the messy pile of lights. She lifted one string, tangled beyond repair, and threw it over her shoulders like a scarf. The tiny bulbs blinked unevenly across her neck.

Jeeny: “Come on. Sing with me.”

Jack: “Absolutely not.”

Jeeny: “You’re singing.”

Jack: “No.”

Jeeny: “You are.”

Jack: “Jeeny—”

Jeeny: (already singing) “—Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…”

Host: Jack groaned. Then, quietly, softly, as if against his own will — his voice joined hers.

Jack: “…oh what fun it is to ride—”

Jeeny: “—in a one-horse open sleigh!”

Host: The two voices — one rough, one bright — filled the little apartment, chasing away the silence. The lights flickered to life, their chaotic rhythm suddenly matching the pulse of laughter between them.

When the song ended, the world outside had grown quieter, softer, as though listening.

Jeeny: “See? Told you. It’s not about believing in Santa. It’s about remembering who you were before you learned to stop singing.”

Jack: “You’re dangerous, you know that?”

Jeeny: “Only to cynics.”

Host: The snow kept falling, slow and endless, erasing footprints and rooftops alike. The city hummed with a fragile peace — temporary, but enough.

Jack turned to Jeeny, his voice low but warm.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not regression. Maybe it’s remembering.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The camera — if there were one — would pull back then, through the frosted window, past the lights and laughter, into the softly falling snow outside.

From a distance, the apartment looked like a tiny lantern, glowing against the dark city — imperfect, flickering, human.

And in that fragile warmth, where memory met hope, two souls had found something rare — not the magic of Christmas itself, but the deeper truth behind it:

That joy, when rediscovered, is a rebellion.
That growing up doesn’t mean growing cold.
And that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do in a tired world…
is to sing.