The Holiday Blues

[Scott6373]

My solution--just stop. Don't do it. Don't participate. Give a loved one a gift when they least expect it--then they will know it truly comes from your heart, and not just social conformity. What I value about the holidays is having time off from work and spending time with family--this is the true gift, and one invaluably more meaningful than the latest gadget or bauble.

I could do that, but I am married to a devout Christian who absolutely loves this holiday.  So I literally suffer through the house decorating, the shows, the music...it all seems so false to me, so empty.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I could do that, but I am married to a devout Christian who absolutely loves this holiday.  So I literally suffer through the house decorating, the shows, the music...it all seems so false to me, so empty.

Well, at the risk of sounding facetious, here you rather do sound like Charlie Brown. It must be very difficult feeling this way when everyone around you, especially Rick, feels so differently about the season. Have you explored why it all seems so false and empty to you? Maybe with professional assistance?

[Scott6373]

Well, at the risk of sounding facetious, here you rather do sound like Charlie Brown. It must be very difficult feeling this way when everyone around you, especially Rick, feels so differently about the season. Have you explored why it all seems so false and empty to you? Maybe with professional assistance?

I have, and all they tell me is it's seasonal effective disorder...a ubiquitous diagnosis at best.  Around this time I will start an antidepressant and take it through the holidays, then taper off as spring approaches.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I have, and all they tell me is it's seasonal effective disorder...a ubiquitous diagnosis at best.  Around this time I will start an antidepressant and take it through the holidays, then taper off as spring approaches.

Hmm. Well, I wouldn't presume to second-guess your doctors, but that usually hits me after the holidays, when there is nothing to look forward to for three months until spring. 

[serious crayons]

Having grown up in an areligious, non-Christian yet Christmas-celebrating family, I don't have much problem with that particular conflict. To me, Christmas works perfectly well as a secular holiday, a great time to see friends and exchange tokens of affection and attend parties and eat delightful foods and decorate the house and put up a tree and lights lots of candles and wear festive clothes ... all activities done purely for their own sake, because they're fun and pretty and heartwarming.

My own Christmas problem is my sons. Their tastes are narrow and their expectations are high -- they've never played much with toys, even when young, so it's always been a little tricky to find things they like. But now, at 11 and 13, they are mainly interested in electronics and sporting equipment, stuff that's way out of my budget. Add to that the fact that I'm the one doing the shopping and I'm not the best judge of young boys' tastes. Yet they really want to be surprised and excited on Christmas. A couple of years ago, the last year we sort of kept up the pretense of Santa's existence, they hated almost everything I got them. They tried to be polite, but their disappointment was obvious. Christmas was genuinely ruined for me.

BTW, I get Seasonal Affective Disorder, too. Mine doesn't really kick in until after the holidays, but it lasts until mid-March. The most effective treatment I've found for it is to get outside every day, especially if it's sunny. Often, you can feel your mood lift as quickly as if you'd taken a pill. If it's too cold to take a walk or go skiing or skating or whatever, drive a car with a sunroof.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Lights and candles, lots of lights and candles! Defy the darkness! Very ancient and certainly not specifically Christian. After the music, the lights are what I love most about the season.

When I was a small boy, my grandparents had one of those garish aluminum Christmas trees (which are nostalgically fashionable again--go figure  ) that was illuminated by a color wheel--you couldn't put lights on those trees, I guess to avoid electrocuting yourself. I was appalled by the very idea of a Christmas tree without lights. It seemed to me that the lights were the very essence of a Christmas tree. A few years later, because my mother had health issues, we had to buy an artificial tree; thank goodness, by that time they had invented the green kind that you could put lights on,

Whaddya mean, "the pretense of Santa's existence"? 

My SAD usually starts to lift by late February. By that time, we have a noticeably longer period of daylight each day. That helps a lot.

[serious crayons]

Whaddya mean, "the pretense of Santa's existence"? 

 



 

[notBastet]

Scott, if the religious implications of the day give you pause, bear in mind (and I know you already know this) that December 25th is just a convention, and one the Church very self-consciously started to overlay pagan Saturnalia with the new state religion. No one knows when Jesus was actually born, though the Gospels would suggest a date in the spring to be far more likely than one in the winter.

Of course, I understand that even though the date may be inaccurate, the sentiment is still to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And from a Christian viewpoint, this should be a festive occasion (though Easter, logically, would suggest even more festive recognition). So I can only imagine (as a non-Christian) the pressure a Christian might feel to FEEL festive, even if, for whatever reason, they don't.

Of course, Christmas has become a de facto season of secular consumption here in the West (or at least in the U.S.), and there is pressure to conform to the social expectations that have arisen with the holiday--spending and giving, all in a mad rush to keep up with the Joneses, or to not let your kid down so that they own the same toy/game their peers do, or to not look bad in your family members' eyes. I frankly think a lot of this behavior is completely unnecessary and actually a little crazy, and the giving of gifts actually has come to represent less of what is in one's heart than in meeting arbitrary cultural demands. In other words, a lot of hypocrisy has come to play in the holiday.

My solution--just stop. Don't do it. Don't participate. Give a loved one a gift when they least expect it--then they will know it truly comes from your heart, and not just social conformity. What I value about the holidays is having time off from work and spending time with family--this is the true gift, and one invaluably more meaningful than the latest gadget or bauble.

yes, and what an odd thing indeed, it has become...

[Kelda]

Do you know, I love the holidays and I love my family - but they also drive me batty - mostly my sister actually- and the close confines get the hairs on my back up.

This year we are having it at her house - a much smaller house than my aunts and with much less people - its going to be harder to 'get away' from personalities if I need to.

We'll see how it goes!

But I do think i get a little boit of SAD too.

[Scott6373]

There's also an interesting dynamic that happens.  People try to cheer you up, and to josh you into "the holiday spirit".  What they don't realize is that doing that make us feel worse, like how we are feeling is silly, and we should just snap out of it.