With Christmas about two weeks away, many young parents worry about holiday plans. For many Millennial and Gen Z parents, end-of-year holidays have been about traditions passed down from one generation to another. A time to meet with relatives, sleep on the floor at grandma’s and learn the family tree and culture.
Becoming parents has pushed some to create their own holiday culture, reticent but very intentional and planted firmly on the belief that they, too, can enjoy the holidays away from extended families by creating small, intimate moments of sharing in their homes. Chief casualty of this culture change is Christmas.
The shift in what Christmas means to different people, how it is celebrated and with whom is fast gaining traction as some parents share below.
For Faith Mumbi, Christmas as a child was what she calls a “brief sanctuary of extended peace.”
“Our home was violent and Christmas was the only time my siblings and I could be fully childlike, surrounded by cousins and protected from the chaos that defined the rest of the year.”
Faith Mumbi, 36-year-old banker in Thika, September 2025.
Photo credit: Pool
Mumbi is a mother to two children of her own and a guardian to her younger sister. “Parenting Gen Zs and Gen Alphas—children who are growing up more aware, expressive and opinionated than any previous generation—has forced me to rethink tradition, especially around end-of-year holidays.”
The first major shift, she says, is redefining the center of Christmas. “Growing up, the holiday only became meaningful when our family travelled to our grandmother’s place. Now I believe that Christmas can just start in the house.”
Unlike her parents, who would drop her and her siblings upcountry and pick them up when the holidays were over, Mumbi insists on celebrating the festivities alongside her children. “I didn’t get to experience Christmas with my parents. So, with my kids, I’m making sure we do it together.”
In Mumbi’s home, the kids are not just participants; they are planners as well. They decide themes, clothing, menus and even décor.
“The children ask early: What are we doing this year? What are we wearing? What will we eat? And the answer is never the same as last year. They want novelty and creativity—and they help create it. I look at it beyond the activities. It is a bonding time for us. I get to experience their gifts and talents, their likes and weaknesses. I get to understand my children better.”
For Mumbi, whose siblings and extended family are all in urban centres, reconnecting is not limited to December. Birthdays, random weekends, and small gatherings have replaced the long, exhausting December upcountry stay.
“I feel like we’ve made Christmas more personal. If we save money by not travelling, we put it into making our home celebrations special.”
Their holiday intimacy includes matching pyjamas, home photo shoots, curated dinners, and elaborate tree-decorating sessions.
While she values the comfort and flexibility that this modern Christmas culture has afforded her and other parents like her, she acknowledges the trade-offs. She observes that relatives no longer bond the way they once did. Children may not grow up speaking their mother tongue or understanding clan traditions. They may never experience the rural “ushago ” rhythm that shaped earlier generations.
“Our kids barely know their cousins. They see each other briefly, and that bond isn’t as strong.” Language, cultural rituals and even naming traditions may fade when families stay urban and nuclear. “I hope to achieve some sort of balance. Remain connected to the larger family while we mesh up and knit the bond between my kids and me.”
Christmas has always been commercialised. Over Christmas, the world of children lights up, literally.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
That said, Mumbi believes each generation reinvents family in its own way. What matters is intentional connection. So, whether the family is baking cookies, choosing décor from a shop at a busy mall, hosting Christmas Eve dinner, or simply spending a quiet day together, the goal is to create joyful memories.
“I am building a safe, loving culture that my children will one day choose to pass on—or maybe create new cultures that work for them.”
For the longest time, Saraphina Wambui’s Christmas holidays followed a script written long before she created her own. “Christmas to me meant new clothes, a lot of chapatis , and seeing visitors at our home. If those three didn’t happen, that to me wasn’t Christmas.”
Saraphina Wambui posing at her house along Naivasha Road in Nairobi on November 30, 2025.
Photo credit: Evans Habil|Nation Media Group
As a child in Subukia, Nakuru, she watched adults dictate the rituals: what to cook, whether a goat would be slaughtered, who would visit, and whether she would get a new dress.
When she became an adult and later a mother, she naturally fell in line. “I thought if I didn’t go home for Christmas, it would look bad on me.”
So every December she packed up and left Kitale, traveling with her young son, buying gifts, dressing up, making sure the people back home saw she was “doing well in life.”
Two years ago, that tradition came to an end. “My child asked me, ‘Do we have to go home to my grandma for Christmas?’ And then he said, ‘I think we can stay here and do something fun.’ And at that moment, I realised I’m the parent now.”
“While I was going home to my mother, my son left his home behind. We rarely bonded while there as I was busy in the kitchen, fetching water or plainly doing adult things.”
That’s exactly what they did and afterward they went for a family photoshoot to cap their new holiday culture. “You wouldn’t believe how much peace that brought me,” she says. “No travel and dealing with crowds or the pressure to impress. No exhausting journeys from Kitale to Nakuru to Subukia with hiked fares.”
Traffic jam along the Mai Mahiu-Naivasha road on December 24, 2021 as Kenyans travelled upcountry for Christmas and New Year festivities. Kenya’s busiest highways tend to be one-way affairs.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Her family did not take the change well—at least not at first. “My mum reported me to my grandmother. My grandmother called me asking what the problem was. They thought I was going through something.” For her family, Christmas without Wambui was a direct affront to the family fabric they had taken years to weave.
“Everybody kept asking why. Uncle so-and-so would be there, Mama so-and-so wanted to see me, and I kept saying, ‘I’m not coming.’”
When the second Christmas passed with her not traveling upcountry again, they began to understand. “This year, when I told them I’m not coming, my grandmother just said, ‘Merry Christmas, we wish you well.’ I think they’ve made peace with it.”
She is intentional about maintaining the connections between her son and the rest of the family. “We go home during Easter. Or I visit relatives intentionally. Those interactions remain; they’re just not happening during Christmas.”
For Thomas Mwiraria Muriithi, Christmas once carried deep spiritual and cultural significance. “It was the one season that blended ceremony, faith, family, and festivity into a single, palpable mood.”
Thomas Mwiraria 39-year-old journalist/communications specialist in Nairobi in 2025.
Photo credit: Pool
Growing up, Mwiraria’s father, an educationist, used the holiday as a performance review. “A lot was expected of me because I had shown academic talent. My parents were very strict in terms of academic excellence.” This meant slowing down, taking a breather after the burden of school and household chores—weeding, grazing, fetching water, and plucking coffee .
But it was also joyous. He remembers boys moving from homestead to homestead singing Christmas songs, the anticipation of chapatis and the excitement of relatives from Nairobi arriving for the festivities. “The air of Christmas was very noticeable. The mood would change for the whole season. You felt immersed in something heavenly.”
“I no longer look forward to Christmas in the countryside. I’ve gone through a total switchover. I am cosmopolitan by nature, culturally intelligent, adaptable to changing times.” His relationship with organised religion has also dimmed. “I have interrogated religion for the longest. I don’t feel in touch with it because of the hypocrisy I’ve seen.”
The erosion of his childhood Christmas culture is also tied to loss. Many elders who embodied the village’s moral landscape have passed away.
“My dad signed out some years back. My mom has lost many friends. The people I considered my elders—natural attrition has eliminated them.” What remains are age mates, younger villagers, and new settlers. “I have little connection except with my mom and my siblings.”
Mwiraria is raising his daughters in Nairobi—by choice. “I have incubated them here so I can influence their thinking. I am a stoic philosopher; my living space is full of books.” He wants their worldview shaped deliberately, not by accident. And so, Christmas in his home has been reinvented. “Now there’s gifting, there is taking time to understand their needs, setting goals together. When I set my career goals—which is around Christmas—we set theirs too. We recalibrate.” Whereas once he travelled across the country for the holidays, he now takes his children to malls, museums, and curated experiences. “We take photos, create reels, create happy moments around food.”
Mwiraria sees the positive impact of these choices. “I’m a successful person—not materially, but intellectually. I want to be intentional in parenting. I want my offspring to survive in a world that has really changed.We are creatures of the environment. You must contribute to the environment your children receive.”
To parents struggling with traditions that feel outdated or constraining, Mwiraria has this to say: “I would encourage them to be open-minded and adaptable. The world is constantly changing. There is nothing that remains the same.” Clinging to customs that no longer serve current realities, he argues, can hinder rather than help. “Do what works for you and your children, rather than sticking to traditions that no longer serve the current or future realities.”
He also reminds parents to be financially realistic. “There is a lot of cost implication that comes with Christmas. Work with what works for you. January is staring at us. It’s a matter of balance.”
