Editor's Note : All I Want For Christmas...

Christmas, for me, has always lived in the small things. The smells of roasted goat meat. The hot, blistering nsala, pepper soup with pounded yam. The hours spent plucking wet feathers from rapture chickens. The noise and laughter that filled our house.

The anticipation that sat in my chest as I prepared to wear a new Christmas dress, visiting neighbours and village cousins. And the extra excitement of how much money I would make from those visits, visits where we knew not to accept food, but to say thank you as crisp new naira notes were pressed into our palms by village uncles and aunts.

The rituals we didn’t name but repeated every year like muscle memory. It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but it was familiar, and familiarity has its own kind of magic.

My fondest Christmas memories are rooted in togetherness. In homes that felt fuller than they were. In laughter that rose easily, even when the year had been hard. Christmas felt communal then: shared plates, shared stories, shared silence. It wasn’t about excess or aesthetics; it was about presence.

Christmas now looks and feels different. Quieter. More intentional. Sometimes lonelier. Sometimes freer. Sometimes sorrowful.

Time has a way of changing not just our circumstances, but our capacity for nostalgia. I find myself holding Christmas differently now, less as an obligation to recreate the past, and more as a space to honour where I am. To acknowledge what has been lost, what has shifted, and what still remains.

This season, I’m less interested in perfection and more interested in meaning. In memory. In softness that isn’t performative. In joy that doesn’t need to announce itself loudly.

And that’s where the Blanck Christmas Special begins.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we’re taking a pause, to reflect, to look back, and to gently look forward. This is a celebration of past traditions, evolving identities, and the quiet beauty of Christmas as it really is, not as it’s packaged to be.

To bring this vision to life, we’ll be featuring some brilliant baddies as they share their reflections through style, art, and storytelling, honouring the season in all its complexity: the joy, the ache, the stillness, the warmth.

This is Christmas, Blanck-style.

Thoughtful. Textured. Unrushed.

However you’re holding this season, tightly, loosely, or somewhere in between, I hope these coming features meet you there.

With love,

Franka

Editor-in-Chief, Blanck