Christmas Depression

Many of our stories are written for the sake of making money online or hoping we might get discovered as a writer. This story isn’t written for either purpose. Sometimes we need to tell our stories in hopes of unraveling the good from the bad. Christmas Depression is a topic I’ve not written on. I’m not an expert on Christmas depression or Holiday depression; I’m simply the one that suffers from it.

As far back as my memories will allow me to go, I remember my father always being irritable around Christmas. Days before the Christmas Holiday, he would explode for no reason. He would tell us that we wouldn’t be going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for Christmas or that Santa might not come to our house. It was the same every year and I believe it got worse every year, or I just got older and my memory is clearer. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, he was a happy camper. No one outside our family would have an inkling of what the days leading up to Christmas was like with my father. He happily set up doll houses and Hot wheels car tracks that we had unwrapped on Christmas morning.

My mother, a quiet woman, never said a word in front of me about my dad’s pre-Christmas showdowns. She was happily stuck in her own world of baking cookies, fresh pastries, setting the perfect Christmas table and downing her daily consumption of beer. Maybe the beer was a clue…it got her through the Holiday.

My Christmas depression didn’t start until after I had children. At first I didn’t understand why Christmas was making me a wild crazy woman ready to run down old ladies with my grocery cart. I had visions that my Christmas’s would be perfect. My table would be laid as my mother had, with linen table clothes, napkins, and proper Christmas China. But hold on there – I didn’t have any of those things. After the death of my parents, my sister had confiscated all the China, linen and silver. I had a deep seeded need to go into her house and steal back what I had grown up with. She had, after all, been married and had three of her own children when Dad died, I was merely 18. She left nothing for my brother or me. I believe this is may have been one of the causes of the Christmas depression, the feeling that I had nothing left of my parents during Christmas.

Holiday stress also added to the Christmas depression.  Torn between two families that lived 300 miles apart became one of my breaking points.  Packing my young children, their Christmas gifts, their Santa gifts and driving in God only knows what kind of weather to the great white north, stressed me to the hilt.  Knowing that when we arrived at my in-laws, my son would be treated like gold, my daughter like she barely existed.  Men in this family ruled the roost (except my spouse!) and girls played a minor role.  I also knew that if we didn’t arrive in time, we wouldn’t make it to the local grocery store to purchase food for the kids to eat.  Unfortunately for them (and me) lutefisk, meatballs with greasy gravy atop mashed potatoes and over cooked corn wasn’t going to cut it for them.  Lucky us, we were served lutefisk twice, Christmas Eve and then again, low and behold, you can use leftover Lutefisk, add Cream of Mushroom soup and WALA, you have Lutefisk hot dish for Christmas day dinner.  Along with the hot dish, we had a yummy beef roast cooked at 375* for five or six hours, the dog would have considered this a great little rawhide treat that could last for days.   For my children and I, Christmas in the great white north was not really Christmas.

Then there is my family.  Can I say we are much better, no, but we cook better and we have alcohol!  My sister, being quite a bit older, decided that she would become the family matriarch shortly after my dad died.  It was her role to control Christmas.  Lucky for us, she inherited my dad’s wonderful characteristics of Christmas temper tantrums.  She played the role right through Christmas day and she is damn good at it.  She can turn any happy Christmas loving person into a Grinch with one single glare.  She insisted that everyone buy gifts for everyone.  Now as time has gone by, she really only insists that we buy for all five of her grandchildren.  Lucky for me, my niece turned out to be just like her mom. Greedy with a knack to make you feel guilty at every turn.

On Thanksgiving Day several years ago, Christmas depression hit hard, hit fast and lasted for almost a year.  On this particular Thanksgiving, the matriarch decided it was time to draw names for Christmas.  My spouse politely told her that we had agreed to not exchange gifts that year.  Whew, shit hit the fan!  He was screamed at like a child and told he was nothing but a snob.  I quickly grabbed my kids, my spouse, looked at entire room and said “I’m done with your holidays” and walked out.  After the debacle, my brother and I decided to have a quiet Christmas Eve with his family & mine. We planned for a simple Christmas Eve with games and good food.  No emphasis on gifts.  Well word got out.  My niece called me to tell me I’d split the entire family a part and ruined their lives.  All I wanted was a simple, uncomplicated Christmas, and suddenly I was a villain.  The symptoms of depression set in quickly that year.  The stress of Christmas programs, Christmas shopping, and decorating set me into a whirlwind of emotion.  I cried, I slept, I cried, I slept.  I was a villain.  I hated my once loved mall full of holiday shoppers and gaily lit decorations.  I didn’t care if I saw one single house that was decorated for the season.  Christmas cookies were now a chore.  Christmas was no longer fun.  I had allowed myself to lose what Christmas was really meant to be, a celebration of Christ’s birth.

We did spend that Christmas with my brother and his family and had a marvelous time.  The ramifications for those actions were taken out on only me for the next year. The following year, my spouse and I decided that it would be best for us all to not spend the Christmas holiday with either family.  Taking my mental health into consideration, we booked a 10 day vacation on the beach.  It was the best Christmas we had ever had.

As November begins, so does all the holiday stress.  I’ve already made our excuses for Thanksgiving.  Christmas has yet to be planned.  The guilt of keeping my children away from their extended family for my own sake haunts me and further adds to the stress and depression surrounding Christmas.  This year, I plan to make it different.  I want to be different. I want my immediate family, the four of us to have another magical Christmas.  It is not too late to book airfare.

Christmas depression is not uncommon for many people.  I don’t know the statistics, but I’m sure Google does.  If you feel you suffer from Christmas depression or holiday depression, you need to talk with your doctor.  Symptoms of depression in general are feelings of being a nobody, excessive sleep or insomnia, lack of interest in the holidays, nausea, weight gain or weight loss and feeling blah humbug.

Holiday stress relief is important to keeping the depression at bay. Coping with the depression is key.  If you have happy childhood memories of Christmas, listen to Christmas carols that you did when you were a kid, watch all the old Christmas movies, the new Christmas movies on Hallmark and of course those great cartoons like Charlie Brown, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  Buy a few new Christmas cd’s.  Do Christmas your way, not what your family expects of you, but what you want for your own family.  Happy Christmas’s are what I want my children to remember, not a raging maniac mommy who is out for Santa’s blood.