I am a Muslim, but I am also not one thing. My lineage is a map of mixed heritage, and the Christian part of me is a very living, breathing part of my soul. To me, a church is not a tourist stop and the Virgin Mary is not an aesthetic; they are anchors. When I connect with them, it is a spiritual communion born of respect for the invisible guardians of the sacred. It is something hard-won, researched, and felt in the bone.

That is why being in Istanbul for this month feels so heavy. It is the same city I have always knownm anchored by centuries of prayer and deep, honest shadows, yet a new energy has drifted in. It’s a thin, restless fever that lives mostly on phone screens, but it has spilled out into the cafes and onto the old streets in a blur of red hats and synthetic pine.

I watch people immersing themselves in this world of commercial glitter, and it breaks my heart a little. It is hollow, pointless, and plastic. It’s not that I mind the celebration; it’s that I don’t recognize the soul behind it. There is no conviction here, only a borrowed costume.

The Performance of Presence

In a country where the heritage is so distinct from the ritual, this isn’t an embrace of a holy day. It is a performance. We are living in a time where the camera has become a constant, demanding companion. It requires a daily tribute of “joy,” and I see so many people becoming actors in a story they haven’t actually read.

There is a frantic pace to it, full volume, zero shame. Everyone is traveling at the speed of light to keep up with a global trend that doesn’t know their names. In that blurred motion, something precious is being dropped: the gravity of identity, the quiet dignity of culture, and the ethics of a life lived for oneself rather than an audience. They are trading their own weight for a handful of tinsel.

The Threshold of Make-Believe

There is a threshold where being “open” to the world stops and “make-believe” begins. I see Turkish girls on social media painting Christmas scenes on walls, carefully adopting the aesthetics of a faith they have no inkling of. This isn’t inclusivity; it’s a choreography. It’s a way of trying to buy a feeling through a photo op, turning a day that should be sacred into a mere backdrop for a digital story that disappears in twenty-four hours.

The data behind this is staggering. Turkey has one of the highest social media penetration rates in the region, and arguably the world. This obsession with the digital image has created a billion-dollar industry built on a vacuum. In a country where the Christian population is less than one percent, the markets are flooded with “Noel” merchandise that is systematically conflated with New Year’s Eve. Because the hunger for “content” is so high here, a spiritual event has been stripped down into a ready-made stage. People are performing a presence instead of simply being.

The Feather in the Wind

When you have no identity or beliefs of your own, you become a feather in the wind. You have no substance, no allegiances, and nothing solid under your feet to keep you from blowing away. You adopt these glittery parts from other cultures not because you’ve investigated them, but as a “painkiller” for a lack of self.

Adopting a ritual without a deep investigation is a dangerous disguise. It is a way to distract from the deep, quiet problem of not knowing who you are or where you stand. You cannot find your soul in a borrowed costume; you only find a more colorful version of the void. It is a way of hiding the fact that one is becoming a ghost in their own land.

The Missing Light

To see these symbols turned into a circus by those with no conviction feels like a violation of the spirit. It’s like watching someone play with a fire they don’t realize can burn.

They are kneeling before a display of plastic and light, waiting for an affection that never arrives, because they have no “actual thing” to hold onto. I look at them and I feel a profound sadness for what is being forfeited. They have all the glitter, but in the rush to record it, they have missed the light entirely.