Fight Holiday Blues

Holiday Depression?

It’s sad to read social media posts of friends and acquaintances who have emotional troubles around the holiday season.

I used to be one of those people but now look forward to this time of the year and embrace it for everything it’s worth.

There has been great tragedy in my life’s history and for a bunch of years I would basically hide, rehash, and sulk for a good solid month.

Holidays are rich in family tradition and it’s very easy to remember all of the good times from our childhoods and how all of our family members were alive and now, perhaps, they are not.

Coupled with any other sort of negative experience many people simply associate the loss of family members and those other associated tragedies with the Christmas season and fall into a funk.

So how does someone overcome these negative feelings, particularly right now?

It takes effort, pure and simple. It takes a conscious decision to make a change. Traditions are habits, after all, and to change a habit, particularly one which is associated with negativity or one which is simply a bad habit, one must do something different.

Believe me…everyone, and I mean every one of your friends, acquaintances and associates would rather see you happy and would rather not have you drag them in to your cauldron of misery.

It is time to pull your own self out of your hole, move forward, be happy and spread happiness.

Here are some of the steps I took when I finally decided that I was no longer going to hibernate for that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas and stop being such a drag on anyone else who came across my path. Pick and choose anything or simply get the main idea and make some sort of change that will help you improve your well-being. (This list is filled with the word “I” too much, but I can only write about my own experiences and what worked.)

-        -  I took vacation for the last two weeks of the year. I stopped, slowed down everything, and took off time. No, I did not get paid for the time off. I took it to help save myself and it was worth every dollar I lost.

-        -  I had a Christmas party every year for a while. I invited close friends and made food and bought food. I told everyone not to bring anything except a personalized ornament of some sort for my Christmas tree. I still have those ornaments today and value them greatly.

-        -  I went to Christmas shows…didn’t care what they were; anything from a high school play to a Broadway show, I made sure to see something every year.

-        -  I took drives to look at decorated homes. There are some people out there who out incredible displays. That spirit is infectious.

-       -  I saved and saved and went to Disney World the week before Christmas one year (and am leaving tomorrow for there as well.) It is impossible to not have one’s whole attitude change at this place. Again, it’s costly, but my mental health is worth every penny. Go SOME place which embraces the fullest extent of the season’s spirit.

-        -  I took dogs of mine to have pictures taken with Santa (I don't have any children.) It then became impossible to frown when looking at those pictures…particularly one in which my dog, Brother, was red rocketing and I knew it and had to do what I could to cover it up in the shot.

With Sasha and Santa

-         - I went to Christmas Eve masses. I’m not even religious but I would go because I knew there would be people there who had a completely different faith and idea about the whole season. One year I even ended up at a Guatemalan mass in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the entire service was in Spanish. I didn’t understand a thing that was said, except the word Jesus, the whole evening, but had a blast and will never forget it.

-        -   I decorated the outside of my house with lights. I never really did that in the past and my parents didn’t either. Now, I do.

I think the whole point is that I decided to create new positive memories and even some new traditions. Some of those new traditions had to be scrapped because some other negative experience happened. But I knew I could just do something else and recall the best of those times when I did originally change what I did.

Everyone accumulates a list a heartbreaks and tragedies in their lives. We all walk down very well beaten paths and while we think we have some unique horror that keeps us down, we always eventually find out that, for the most part, we have things pretty good.

It is, by the way, OK to grieve a bit. Take a day and do so each year, if you wish. Take ONE day and do that. Hide in the basement under a blanket with a big ice-cream pizza if  you wish. Call it your grieving day or your memorial day, or what have you. Get it done in that ONE day and one day only.

We need to remain thankful and positive and while it certainly can be difficult it simply takes some work and that work and that change begins with a simple decision.

It is all up to you, though. No one else can take any step for you. At the very least take a step to do something that will make someone else happy.

But, perhaps, taking some action to help yourself IS that step that will make someone else happy.

Just take the step.