Here come the holidays, and here comes stress. Any sane person would avoid the crowded malls, travel to places early and have everything ready for family before they arrive. Yet, this never seems to happen. Last minute shopping for forgotten ingredients and presents, hours spent in the airports for delayed flights and surprise family members visits create the mayhem that we consider the holiday season.
Holidays are about being with family. We see the perfect families on television and in movies, happily cutting the turkey and blissfully decorating their Christmas trees and lighting their menorahs. Though this may seem like reality, it is, in fact, an ideal that causes the holiday season to be the most stressful and a depressing time of the year for many people.
It is without a doubt that any host of a holiday gathering wants to please all of his or her guests. There is an expectation that holiday dinners must have perfect food, everybody must look their best for the event and, above all, everyone must get along. If all these aspects cannot work together on a normal day, why would they actually work on one specific day?
I know that at any family gathering, emotions will fly. There are always too many cooks in the kitchen being “helpful” (this inevitably will happen at my house.) It is typical as well that the unresolved conflict (the one that has been unresolved since last holiday season) will resurface its ugly little head again. Not to say that family gatherings cannot have happy times, but there is pressure to make everything ideal and it is this pressure that causes stress and depression.
According to the health page on the BBC Web site, it “calls to help lines about depression and suicide rise by nearly 10 percent during the festive season. ” Extremely high expectations, stress, fatigue, over-commercialization, financial pressures, the inability to be with one’s family and friends or spending too much time with one’s family and friends can all be causes of depression during the holiday season.
We have to realize that nobody is perfect and that it is actually normal if your holiday season is not full of festive cheer all the time.
If you find yourself feeling a bit blue, you might try a few of these ideas. Remember that the gift you give is worth the thought behind it, not the price tag. If you give a gift from the heart, it will be much more appreciated.
Also, remember that your family is just like any other real family out there. There will be rivalries, arguments, nagging and criticizing. This can seem as though it will ruin your holiday, but if you control your reaction to these incidents, you can keep interactions between family more pleasant.
If situations become too uncomfortable, take a walk. People tend to forget about exercise during the holidays. Not only will the extra oxygen help you clear your head to make you feel better, but the exercise will make you feel less guilty about eating all the extra treats we have such a hard time resisting.
Finally, though alcohol can be free flowing at times, especially at New Year’s Eve parties, keep it to a minimum. Alcohol can act as a depressant and while it makes you happy for a short period of time, you do not feel any better when it wears off. If anything, you feel worse from the hangover.
Our high expectations basically have us thinking that the house is going to look like Martha Stewart waved her magic wand over it, Dr. Phil sat the family down for a pre-holiday family meeting and Donald Trump decided that he was going to give personal donations to people.
The holidays can be a special and joyous time. However, it can be even more enjoyable if we step back and keep our expectations realistic. My dad always says, “You are responsible for your own happiness.” Now more than ever, if we keep this in mind, we can have a much happier holiday season.
Jenna McDaniel is a junior arts education major and a weekly columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
