Christmas 2025 is only days away, but for many Americans, this season feels heavier than festive. After a year spent struggling to stay afloat, countless families are entering the holidays with more worry than joy.
Wages remain stagnant, often hovering just above minimum wage. Housing costs have soared so high that even the least desirable apartments in many communities exceed what working people can reasonably afford. Food prices continue to climb. The Trump Administration can insist otherwise, but anyone who walks into a grocery store knows the truth. Even those with subsidized ACA plans have found medical care increasingly unaffordable. Simply staying alive has become an expensive undertaking.
And it’s not just the poor who are hurting. Millions in the lower rungs of the middle class, people who technically “make ends meet”, are doing so with nothing left over. Every month is a tightrope walk. Trump’s tariffs have added a hidden tax to nearly everything Americans buy. The administration may boast about the revenue, but that money is coming directly from the pockets of ordinary people, not foreign exporters or multinational corporations.
Then there’s the One Big Beautiful Bill – or the Ugly Bill, as many have come to call it. Pushed through by Trump and Congressional Republicans, it has already begun to sting. The real pain, however, is scheduled to arrive after the midterm elections, when delayed provisions kick in. That timing was no accident. It was a calculated bet that voters would forget what was coming.
And we cannot ignore the human toll of the administration’s immigration policies. Thousands of immigrants, some undocumented, many fully legal until their status was revoked, have been deported or imprisoned in conditions described as despicable: inadequate food, insufficient water, and withheld medications. For them, Christmas will not be a season of comfort or joy.
This year has been overshadowed by policies that have fractured the American community I belong to. We’ve witnessed corruption at the highest levels of government, deception used to mask abuses of power, and attempts to prosecute political opponents. We’ve seen threats and punitive actions aimed at universities, law firms, the media, and even judges. We’ve watched the administration justify lethal strikes on alleged “drug runners” in the Pacific and Caribbean, without evidence, while ordering military officers to carry out actions many believe to be illegal. And we’ve seen the deliberate obstruction of the Epstein files, in defiance of an Act of Congress.
It’s a dark list. And yet, as the year ends, I find myself holding onto something essential: hope.
New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time for resolutions. This year, our resolution must be collective. Let us resolve to raise our voices – loudly – against policies that harm our neighbors and erode our democracy. Let us stand with immigrants, defend their dignity, and fight for their rights. Let us demand that Congressional Republicans fulfill their constitutional responsibilities and hold the administration accountable. Let us insist on a Supreme Court guided by genuine legal principle rather than partisan loyalty.
And above all, let us resolve to vote next November. There will be obstacles. There will be efforts to make voting harder. But your vote remains the most powerful tool you possess. It can correct the course of this country. It can restore decency and fairness. It can make Christmas 2026 a brighter, more hopeful season for all of us.
This year may be shadowed by hardship. But the future is not yet written – and we still have the power to shape it.
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