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Goodbye, Bah Humbug!
8 Ways to Reclaim the Holiday Spirit
By Sue Marquette Poremba
Every year you look forward to the holiday season and you are determined to keep it all under control. But the next thing you know, the holidays are here, and you aren't ready – physically, mentally or emotionally. Instead of a relaxing holiday with your loved ones, it turns into a stressed out, depressing couple of weeks. Instead of enjoying the moment, you end up counting down the days until everything gets back to normal.
"There's a tendency to have high expectations to do things perfectly around the holidays, such as effective spending of money, perfect gift-giving, etc.," says Michael Crabtree, professor of psychology at Washington and Jefferson College.
To prevent the holiday funk before it can hit, Crabtree suggests remembering enjoyable things from the past and repeating those rituals.
"But you want to discriminate between the melodrama of the past and the things you can replicate from the present. For instance, don't focus on people who have passed away, but focus on the things that you did with them and can still do, like going out and cutting down a live Christmas tree."
Also, winter weather can exaggerate the holiday blahs. "The short winter days reduce the amount of light we receive and cause us to feel tired or sad, creating a light-deprivation-induced depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD," says Dr. Walter Smitson, psychologist and director of the Central Psychiatric Clinic at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. "Remember that days will begin getting longer after December 21, and bright artificial lights can help compensate for the dark days."
