Shades Of X-mas Past Linger After The 25th
Christmas has come and gone
Christmas has come and gone. Either it was a really good day, or a really bad one, or somewhere in between. But, it is over. Why then, you ask yourself, are you feeling blue. You think, maybe it is a delayed reaction to the energy and effort you devoted to preparing for Christmas. Or, now that the holidays are over, maybe it"s the dream of the dark winter. Wait, there is another possibility: maybe the residual memories of the day after your childhood Christmases that come back to haunt you.
Alan always approaches Christmas with mixed feelings. As a little boy, he waited anxiously for Christmas morning when he and his two brothers snuck downstairs to see if Santa remembered what they wanted. They fingered all the wrapped gifts, guessing what was inside. They whispered and giggled while trying not to wake up their parents. These are his happy memories of Christmas.
They get blurred, though, with memories filled with disappointment from a few years later. "Christmas Day was spent visiting his divorced parents and both sets of grandparents," he recalls. "It was like being on a train that rolled quickly through each station with just enough time to wave at the people standing on the platform, maybe steal a fast hug and kiss. I was never asked how I wanted to divide up the day; it was always what the adults wanted me to do. I always felt everyone was disappointed I wasn"t spending more time with them."
While Alan has mixed memories about Christmas, Marlene"s are all bad. Every year she went to sleep with high hopes. "But those hopes were dashed in the morning. My father was drunk and my mother was screaming at him not to ruin the day for us kids. We set the table filled with food we couldn"t afford. I could count on my uncles to argue with each other; my two youngest cousins would pick on each other until one was screaming. I"ve always hated Christmas."
In childhood, for weeks in advance, you vibrate with the excitement of Santa"s arrival, of getting gifts of your family gathering together, of all the great food. The expectations of Christmas morning often are crushed by bedtime, by the reality of what the day was really like.
Back then, though, you had not yet learned that life rarely lives up to your idealized anticipation. Come bedtime, everyone was cranky and tired. The anticipation exhibited just 24 hours ago has dissipated.
You came to Christmas with expectations of how it should have been for your children; yet you still woke up on the 26th disappointed; the turkey was tough, the kids fought too much; your spouse didn"t like your gift. Mostly, you woke up feeling no one appreciated all of your effort and money to make Christmas special. You told yourself that after a few days you could put this behind you. But here it is after New Year"s, and you are still blue.
Alan is blue. "I never think about what I want on Christmas. I"m always thinking about others, yet I"m always disappointing people "" my wife, my kids, my parents, even our neighbors whom we didn"t invite the tree like we do every year. I"m always letting everyone one." This is his perception. In actuality, his family had a wonderful Christmas.
Marlene"s family spends Christmas at her youngest sister"s. Her father has been sober for ten years; the quarreling uncles have mellowed; the pesky little cousins are now parents themselves "" of well-behaved children. She loves spending Christmas Day with her family. "Yet", she complains, "I"m always depressed for a few weeks afterwards. It makes no sense."
Actually, it does make sense. Marlene and Alan are suffering from shades of Christmases past. Marlene"s present is warm and fuzzy in sharp contrast to her history which accentuates her grief over her painful memories from childhood. Alan"s feeling he disappointed everyone is a memory of how he felt after his parents" divorce. Neither Marlene nor Alan is aware of the connections. They just now they feel gloomy. They both berate themselves for not being able to "just snap out of it and move on."
If they understood their feelings came from post-holiday disappointment and crushed dreams, they could prevent the on-going low-grade depression from dragging on all winter.
Here are some steps that can help ease post-holiday blues.
1.Give yourself time to mourn the loss of your childhood anticipated Christmas. You will feel sad and maybe angry. But, it will pass.
2.Don"t just return to your normal work week, forgetting about the holidays. We live in such a rushed life, when one thing is done, we move on to the next. Spend time with loved ones talking about what had been good about Christmas.
3.You"ve already made your New Year"s resolution. Is it something you know you will not keep? If so, scrap it. Don"t set yourself up for failure at a time of year when you need all the self-nurturing you can get. Hint: If you"ve had the same resolution more than once, forget it. Resolving something you know you won"t do is stupid! Pick a resolution that is meaningful and doable.
4.Print out this article and find a safe place to store it until next December. Do these steps before Christmas next year so you can have a calmer holiday and be less blue come January 2013?
by: Dr. Karen Gail Lewis
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