The holidays are over and it is that time… time for cold
weather, time for dull days without holiday cheer, time for that long stretch
before bright spring colors can be moved to the front of the closet. It is time for the winter blues. This time of year I always get a little
SAD. By sad I mean Seasonal Affective
Disorder. It actually sets in at the end
of summer when the weather starts to turn and eventually the days get so short
that if you work a day job you might not get to see daylight for a few weeks,
but the holidays keep me distracted until this very time when I often just
can’t ignore it anymore. I’m not the
only one.
The holidays can be a difficult time for many. The death tolls always rise during this
time. Suicides go up as people realize
they can’t provide the gifts to their children that they know will be on their
letters to the North Pole or as their loneliness rears its ugly head. Grief during this time of year also tends to
take a few lives as older widows and widowers come upon their first Christmas
without their life mate. After the
holidays are over you have those folks that pass from heart attacks while
shoveling their driveway and the accidental slips and falls on the ice and
let’s not forget the dreaded flu that gets the best of some of our at risk
population. Then there is the
realization that winter is just getting started and there are long months ahead
of us filled with cold dreary days even though the days are getting longer
again.
The holidays are my saving grace. I’m a warm weather girl at heart, but I can
ignore the cold while I have the holiday spirit carrying me along. You see, I love Christmas. I love it more than any other day of the
year. I love it more than any other
celebrations in life. I plan for it all
year long and start getting REALLY excited for it usually around July when it
becomes closer rather than farther away.
The problem is that as an adult there just isn’t enough time in a day to
really get my fill of the season. As a
kid I can remember what seemed like weeks on end of holiday decorations and you
would have sworn that practicing for the Christmas performance in school must
have started in September because by the time Christmas Day arrived you were so
ready for it and immersed in the holiday spirit that you would have sworn it
was never going to get here. As an adult
time goes by so fast that it seems like it is all over before it even really
gets started. I look forward to this one
day each year so much that sometimes it seems like it never even happened at
all it goes by so quickly. I am the
poster child for the joy of giving and even though some years you can feel the
crotchety procrastinators’ annoyance and the crime rates go up I still feel
like most people are nicer during this time of year than during any other time
of the year. I always wish I could feel
the Christmas Spirit all throughout the year.
And then on December 26th it all comes to a screeching
halt. The Christmas radio station that
has been playing since before Thanksgiving goes back to its normal easy
listening playlist. They don’t even
consider weaning us off the holiday music in a polite and reasonable
fashion. At midnight it’s just done. The claymation and animation holiday specials
disappear and overnight television programming turns into bad made for TV
movies and reruns of shows that nobody even watched the first time. It isn’t even reruns of the good shows that
are all on winter hiatus! People yank
down their holiday decorations that took them weeks to get up before lunch is
even served, and stores suddenly are stocked with Valentine’s Day candy and St.
Patrick’s Day beaded necklaces as if Christmas never even really happened at
all. It is on December 26th
that I suddenly feel like the wind has just been kicked out of me. I’d rather go cold turkey off of
opiates.
This year though I feel more thankful than past years. The past few years have been riddled with
holiday time deaths in my family. This
year though was different and through my cold weather blues I still feel
thankful and grateful that this year we made it. I feel blessed and seem to be acutely aware
of the difference between this year and the last few years. Is it partly due to the grief I felt for
those families that were facing Christmas this year with the shock and grief
over the murder of their small children just a few short days before? Maybe, but the past few years I have known
what it feels like once you reach that age when deaths and funerals start to
become a regular event, so I think this year I can just feel the difference
when you have made it through the peak risk period without any and I’m grateful. This year I’m blessed and I know it. So while you face the blues and blahs and
cold know your blessings. Your blessings
might look different than mine, but the fact remains that you too are blessed
and if just for a moment right now in this breath revel in it.
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