Like many others, I consider Christmas to be my favorite time of the year.

As soon as September rolls around, our neighbors start adorning their homes with lights and outside churches, you’ll find vendors selling bibingka. At the same time, social media becomes flooded with stories and posts featuring Christmas decorations, holiday preparations, and the familiar sound of Christmas songs.

At its core, Christmas in the Philippines is a vibrant celebration shaped by faith, love, and community—a reflection of the deep Catholic influence on our culture. It’s a season of joy that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, a time for families to come together and share in the spirit of giving. However, as the years pass, the essence of this celebration often gets overshadowed by the growing commercialization of the holiday.

#FOMO

(Photo from HuffPost)

There was a time when Christmas felt so full of life and joy. Maybe it’s simply the inevitable effect of growing up, but it’s hard to deny that social media has also played a role in changing the way we experience the season.

Even outside the holiday season, social media is often the biggest culprit when it comes to the fear of missing out (FOMO). While the term might sound lighthearted, its impact runs deep, affecting people’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

A 2017 study found a strong correlation between daily use of social media and a higher chance of developing anxiety disorders. Anxiety and depression, in particular, make individuals more susceptible to experiencing FOMO, with effects that can take a toll on daily life.

While social media isn’t the only trigger for FOMO, it undoubtedly intensifies it. Especially for teenagers and young adults who have witnessed the evolution of digital platforms, we often feel pressured to meet unrealistic standards set by what we see online, believing we need to present the “best versions” of ourselves for others to look up to, just like how we do.

Remember when Christmas was about gathering with family for Simbang Gabi and sharing stories during Noche Buena? Now, many of us find ourselves glued to our phones. We scroll through social media feeds, checking updates from friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike. Someone might be posting a story featuring a plane window with the airplane emoji and a country flag, or perhaps sharing a night out at the beach. And as we watch, it’s easy to feel that their holiday somehow looks “better” than ours.

As the Christmas season unfolds, the fear of missing out only grows stronger. It’s easy to feel a pang of envy, believing others are enjoying a better celebration or have so much more than we do. But what exactly is the “better holiday” we think we’re missing out on?

An imperfect Christmas

(Photo from Friends)

The freshly decorated Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, silver ornaments last year and yellow ones this time, the gifts stacked neatly beneath it, the shopping bags from holiday sprees, the perfectly arranged charcuterie board. These are the images we see on social media that we either tap like or swipe past the stories.

But if we look more closely, these curated holiday snapshots, and the constant scrolling through them, encourage a consumer-driven mindset. There’s this subtle pressure to showcase expensive gifts, grand celebrations, and picture-perfect moments to prove we’re having the ideal Christmas.

In chasing this perfection, the less polished moments often go unnoticed—the very moments that once defined the spirit of the season. We overlook the mother who stayed up since dawn, preparing dishes and desserts to make the day special. We forget the stressful planning among relatives trying to reunite despite year-long quarrels. Even the joy of seeing cousins after months or years apart, which starts with awkward small talk gets left behind. These moments rarely make it onto social media, simply because they don’t fit the “perfect” image we want to display.

While the fear of missing out and the urge to spend excessively for picture-perfect aesthetics during Christmas can be hard to shake, we can take small steps toward change by remembering the true essence of the celebration—one that lies in the spirit of togetherness, love, and giving, rather than in perfect social media moments or material possessions.

Maybe an unplugged Christmas is what we need, where laughter fills the room, meals are enjoyed fully, and there’s no pressure to appear perfect online. After all, it’s the unfiltered, imperfect moments off-camera that truly capture the beauty of the season.