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HOLIDAY BLUES OR HOLIDAY SPIRIT
Copyright (c) 1996-2003 by William Karl Thomas
There are 365 days in a year, give or take 366 during leap year, and we are vulnerable to depression any of those 365 or 366 days. There is nothing in nature's change of seasons, the tilt of the earth, the tides, the pollen in the air, or any natural cause to make some of us more prone to depression during the Holiday season. Yet some ARE prone to depression during the Holidays, and it is a malady of man's invention.
Thousands of years ago man decided to celebrate the day in winter when the longest night had passed and the sun grew higher on the horizon and the days got longer and warmer. It was called the Winter Solstice and usually occurs on our modern calendar around December 26th. It is the day the earth reaches the farthest distance in its elliptical path around the sun, and therefore from that point days grow longer and nights grow shorter until the Summer Solstice is reached sometime in July (the day the earth is closest to the sun in its elliptical orbit) and we experience the longest day of the year.
Without fully understanding the planetary cause of seasonal cycles, ancient leaders recognized this predictable event as an opportunity to gain power. At first they convinced the populace that they were capable of making the sun "return" during its travel away from earth, then proved their point by predicting the day on which they would make it return, allegedly because of the ceremonies they conducted. Of course, the sun would have returned with or without such ceremonies, but, without the concept of a calendar, the people did not know that. Since ancient times, leaders have used the Winter Solstice as a date to center celebrations around. If you look at holiday calendars of all cultures around the world, there is a predominance of celebrations around the Winter Solstice. In the western Judeo-Christian cultures we celebrate Jewish Chanukka (usually pronounced Hanukkah) and Christmas, the birth of Christ, even though historically Christ was born in the Spring, which might have been more significant. Even our modern calendar started the "new year" shortly after the Winter Solstice as a demarcation of beginning again.
Today, much more than in ancient times, we are bombarded by mass media which constantly reminds us hundreds of times every day through newspapers, magazines, junk mail, billboards, store displays, radio, television, and even on-line computers, that we should experience fulfillment more during the Holiday Season than at any other time, that it should be a time of plenty and a time of sharing with others.
The truth is, our pocketbooks and our love life do not always fit the well advertised norm of how to celebrate the Holidays. More people feel economic pressures during the holidays, primarily because OF the holidays and advertising trying to evoke compulsive spending. And more people feel loneliness more acutely during the holidays because of all those ads of happy couples smiling through sleigh rides and stuffing their face full of turkey.
If you feel such pressures, there are two options; either "get with the agenda," or make your own agenda. Option one: get with the agenda. Balance your checkbook, see what cash you can invest in celebrating, and decide that you are going to enjoy celebrating within that budget. If you're romantically unattached, check your little black book, or, if you're a D.A.W.N. member, check out that stack of profiles you previously passed on and give someone else (and yourself) another chance to enjoy the holidays together.
Option two: make your own agenda. If you have religious faith, concentrate on that aspect of the season rather than the materialistic spending side of it. Study the deeper meanings this season is supposed to celebrate and share those thoughts with friends of similar interest. If you are not religious, then be aware of the origins of this season I have described and don't feel obliged to live up to or down to whatever image with which the media attempts to brainwash you. Decide that you are going to enjoy whatever your budget will allow you to, and find a friend to enjoy it with. You don't have to put down the way others celebrate the holidays as long as you have a plan to celebrate them in your own unique way.
Here are a few slightly different approaches to the holidays that have worked for me in the past. Experience a new outlook on the holidays by joining a friend of a different faith in their celebrations, be it attending religious services in their temple or church, or sharing their traditional dinner celebration. Call Big Brothers, Big Sisters, orphanages, or some religious institution, and make the commitment to take a child on a days outing to a park, lunch, and movie. Call Habitat for Humanity and volunteer to work a few days on their next housing project. Read the volunteer column of your local paper and be a helper in some hospital, institution, or social service. Perform a random act of kindness by giving a homeless person a gift certificate for a nice meal (not money).
If you are a single person with a disability, or if you have a single friend, relative, or co- worker with a disability, of if you are able bodied and would like to meet an interesting emphathetic fellow human who happens to have a disability, then there is always the ultimate gift, the gift of love, a D.A.W.N. membership for yourself or a D.A.W.N. Membership Gift Certificate for another. Purchased early enough, it may enhance your holidays, or it will provide new dimensions to your social life for the New Year.
One final item that will improve your outlook throughout the year is to keep this thought in your heart, peace on earth and good will to all its inhabitants.
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