DETTY DECEMBER AND THE SOUL OF A NATION

As the curtains draw on 2025, the human spirit instinctively searches for relief. After a turbulent year marked by economic strain, insecurity, displacement, and emotional exhaustion, men and women long to breathe again. The air of December carries that longing. Lights flicker, music spills into the streets, calendars thin out, and hearts lean toward celebration. Survival itself feels like an achievement, and for many, the response is to seek pleasure—loud, colourful, intoxicating pleasure.

Across Nigeria, this season has acquired a name and a rhythm of its own: Detty December. Cities throb with carnivals, concerts, clubs, street festivals, and parties that last till dawn. Shopkeepers of every faith look forward to Christmas because it promises profit. Millions of naira—and dollars—are poured into clothes, decorations, cards, travel, and gifts. Alcohol sales surge. Villages organize days of feasting, games, and gift-giving. Offices slow down or shut their doors entirely. Appointments are postponed, official engagements suspended, businesses paused, all in the name of commemoration.

Yet beneath the thrill and glamour lies a sobering question: what kind of pleasure are we truly pursuing? Much of the pleasure on offer at year’s end is fleeting. It dazzles the senses but leaves the soul bruised. It promises escape but often delivers illusion. These pleasures—lustful, excessive, destructive—are not God-given joys that endure; they are substitutes that wound quietly. They numb pain for a moment, then return it with interest. In the silence after the music fades, many are left emptier than before, wondering why satisfaction proved so elusive.

The pursuit of happiness through pleasure alone is a kind of modern alchemy—trying to turn noise into meaning, indulgence into fulfilment. But happiness is not found only in being loved, admired, or celebrated. It is also found—perhaps more deeply—in having someone to love. Joy does not merely arise from what we consume; it grows from what we give.

As we end 2025, the contrast is stark. While some dance through December nights, millions struggle to survive them. The less privileged, the disadvantaged, the internally displaced, the refugees beyond Nigeria’s borders—these are not abstractions. They are mothers choosing between food and medicine, children learning to sleep with hunger, families displaced by violence, flood, or poverty. Their December has no glamour. Their year-end has no pause button.

It is here that the true meaning of the season confronts us. Beyond the gatherings, the food, the music, and the fellowship, Christmas is about Christ—who He is and why He came. He came not to amplify excess, but to heal brokenness; not to glorify indulgence, but to restore dignity; not to distract us from pain, but to redeem it through love. The manger itself is a rebuke to shallow pleasure and a call to sacrificial compassion.

A home filled with love and peace is almost like living in heaven on earth. Yet how often do we shortchange our families—our spouses, children, parents, siblings—by spending our kindest words, our warmest laughter, and our most winning smiles on strangers outside our front door, chasing the deception of pleasurable satisfaction? How often do we exhaust ourselves entertaining others while neglecting the sacred work of nurturing peace at home?

Ending 2025 well is not about how many parties we attended or how loudly we celebrated survival. It is about whether our hearts became larger, softer, and more attentive. It is about whether, in a year that hurt many, we chose to heal at least one life. Joy is born when we notice someone who is hurting and help—quietly, sincerely, without applause.

As the year exhales its final breath, may we remember that pleasure fades, but love endures. Noise dies down, but compassion echoes. And when December ends, what will remain is not the memory of excess, but the testimony of lives touched. That is how a turbulent year should be concluded—not merely with celebration, but with meaning.

Obiotika Wilfred Toochukwu,

Living Grace Restoration Assembly Inc.,

Nkono-Ekwulobia, Anambra State