Still Here on Christmas Morning

A Small Miracle, a Long Memory, and a Stubborn Refusal to Disappear

By Cliff Potts
Editor-in-Chief, WPS News

Christmas arrives whether empires behave themselves or not. That may be the most reliable thing about it.

Here in the Philippines, Christmas is less a single day than a long season—music in the streets, lights that never quite come down, families making do with what they have and calling it enough. It’s noisy, warm, imperfect, and very human. Which makes it a good vantage point from which to look back at a world that keeps insisting it’s “post-history” while repeating the same old mistakes.

A Wonderful Life, Even When It’s a Mess

Every December, It’s a Wonderful Life makes its annual return. The lesson is never subtle: a life measured only by money is a small life, and the systems that reward cruelty over care are not neutral—they are choices. George Bailey didn’t fail the system; the system failed him. Sound familiar?

The movie endures because it tells the truth politely. Most people don’t get rich. Most people don’t win. What they do instead is hold communities together with unpaid labor, moral courage, and persistence. That kind of contribution doesn’t trend well on social media, but it’s the only reason societies survive at all.

Hallmark Snow, Real-World Weather

Hallmark Christmas movies exist to reassure people that the world can be fixed in 90 minutes by returning to a small town, reconnecting with a high-school crush, and rediscovering the meaning of cinnamon. There’s nothing wrong with that. Comfort has its place.

But comfort becomes a problem when it replaces awareness. When people are encouraged to retreat into fantasy while real institutions are hollowed out, labor is stripped of dignity, and truth becomes optional, sentimentality turns into anesthesia.

Enjoy the movies. Just don’t confuse them with reality.

Yes, the Fascists Are Still There

Let’s not dance around it: the United States is being run—openly now—by authoritarian movements that borrow the aesthetics of patriotism while dismantling democratic norms. This didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen by accident. It happened because large parts of the population were trained to confuse branding with values and loyalty with silence.

That doesn’t cancel Christmas. It explains why Christmas still matters.

Rituals that emphasize generosity, memory, and mutual care are inherently subversive in systems that thrive on division and extraction. You don’t have to wave a flag to resist. Sometimes it’s enough to refuse to forget how people are supposed to treat one another.

From the Philippines, With Perspective

Living 8,000 miles away from the American media bubble has a clarifying effect. Distance strips away noise. Patterns become easier to see. You notice how often crises are framed as surprises when they were plainly visible for years. You notice how quickly inconvenient people are erased.

You also notice something else: empires are loud, but they are not permanent.

A Note From a Sexy Old Man (Who’s Been Paying Attention)

I’m old enough now to say this without apology: I’ve seen a few cycles. I’ve watched narratives get rewritten, warnings dismissed, and “nobody could have known” deployed as a defense for deliberate negligence. I’ve also learned that survival itself becomes a kind of quiet protest.

Yes, I’m a sexy old man—if for no other reason than I’m still here, still writing, still paying attention when many would prefer I fade politely into silence. Age brings clarity. It also brings a lower tolerance for nonsense.

Still Standing Counts

If this year has taught us anything, it’s that simply remaining visible is an act of resistance. Writing things down. Remembering names. Marking time. Wishing people well even when the larger system seems determined to do the opposite.

So here it is, plain and simple: Merry Christmas from the Philippines. We made it this far. That matters. Tomorrow will bring its own fights, but today we get to pause, breathe, and acknowledge that persistence is not nothing.

It never was.

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APA Citations

Capra, F. (Director). (1946). It’s a Wonderful Life [Film]. RKO Radio Pictures.
Paxton, R. O. (2004). The anatomy of fascism. Alfred A. Knopf.
Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Polity Press.
Tiongson, N. G. (2019). Philippine Christmas traditions and cultural resilience. Philippine Studies, 67(4), 515–532.