Blue Christmas: Take Steps Now to Fight the Holiday Doldrums and Christmas Overload

For many of us, the Happy Holiday season is anything but happy. We're short on money, short on time, short on patience and short tempered.

Let's face it: The holiday season isn't a happy time for everyone. Some people have sad Christmas memories and have a harder time during the holidays. Some people loathe the winter season and have difficulty feeling celebratory or upbeat about anything during the colder months. Mix in a few unreasonable expectations, a lot of extra activity and add that big, letdown feeling we get when we can't pull off the perfect Christmas celebration. It's no wonder our holiday cheer oftentimes looks like a grimace of pain.

If you're reading this then you're probably no stranger to the sadness which can sometimes accompany the holiday season. So you've been blindsided once. For Pete's sake, don't just sit like a passive wimp and let it steamroller over you again! Take proactive steps now to arm yourself against the effects of the upcoming holiday season.

Here are five easy precautions you can take to minimize the stress and sad feelings that sometimes come during this, the "Happiest Time of the Year":

1. If you don't already do so, start taking your vitamins. Find yourself a good daily multivitamin and get to it. And ladies, you're particularly susceptible to iron deficiency if you're in the child-bearing years. Remember that low iron can make you feel fatigued, slow and stupid. Don't forget the ferrous sulfate!

2. With the winter and holiday season comes colder weather and cloudier days. If you thrive in the sunshine and spend your winters mopey and down, you might have seasonal affective disorder. Replace the standard light bulbs in the rooms where you spend most of your time with full-spectrum light bulbs which mimic natural sunlight.

3. Because feeling down or depressed affects our perspective and outlook, take time now before the holiday doldrums hit to make yourself a "mix tape" of songs that make you happy or energize you. Or maybe try songs which remind you of summer. Stay away from Christmas or holiday songs. You'll be getting enough of those when you go out to shop or to bank. Even your grocery store will attack you with musical reminders of the holiday season. When you catch yourself feeling glum, play an upbeat song or two. Make the selections now because the songs you pick when you're feeling fine are not the same songs you'll pick when you're blue. It's hard to perk up when you're playing a funeral dirge in the background and when you're blue it's hard to pick out anything but songs which match your lousy mood.

4. For Pete's sake, don't take on too much Christmas/holiday related activity! Be reasonable and relax. Which sounds better? Snuggling with the kids and munching a bag of prepackaged Christmas cookies while you all watch Frosty the Snowman, or you, flour-covered, tense and snappish while you try to throw together homemade Christmas cookies like some crazed kitchen dervish because you're hell-bent on creating, "lasting Christmas memories."? Don't let yourself become Holiday Season Psycho-Mom. You'll just end up taking the fun out of it for everyone, including yourself.

5. Time to state the obvious: It's your Christmas too! If wrapping presents as you purchase them makes it less stressful on you, then forego the usual holiday wrap-a-thon. If instant mash potatoes streamline the holiday dinner process, then do it. Who's going to remember ten years from now? And frankly, if someone wants homemade mashed so badly, they can jolly well mash 'em themselves!

If you're all alone during the holidays then it's especially important to make this a special time. If you've never done so, consider stopping by a local church for Christmas Eve service. You don't have to believe; just share the peace which can be found there and revel in the music of the season. If that's not to your taste, bundle up and walk the neighborhood to admire the Christmas lights. Staying home and alone for Christmas dinner? That's fine. Get your favorite book or rent your favorite movie. Buy a cheap bottle of good wine and whip yourself up a Christmas dinner if you can cook or grab yourself a turkey TV dinner if you can't. The only purpose is to enjoy yourself. It's important for all of us to remember that, just as we each live our lives in our own way and worship in our own way if we choose, so do we all celebrate the holidays in our own way. There is no right way and there is no wrong way; there's just the way which works for us.

In spite of all we see on TV, almost no one has the idealized Norman Rockwell Christmas we're sold into believing. Let's face it. Troubles come. Families are dysfunctional. People get on our nerves sometimes. And for a lot of us it's been a particularly tough year. Why in the world should we expect this one day to be any different? This is not a Brady Bunch episode. This is life. Relax, keeping your holiday expectations reasonable and yourself flexible. It's much more fun to enjoy where you're at and whom you're with than spending the day pining for something that only exists in your head. Be good, have fun and enjoy yourself.

sources:
CDC-Iron Deficiency
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/nutrition/nutrition_for_everyone/iron_deficiency/index.htm
Wise-Geek-Full Spectrum Lightbulbs
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-full-spectrum-light-bulbs.htm