Woe Is the Holidays

I've read about the "holiday effect" on mortality rates. Statistics from a study done in 2004 show that death rates spike during the holidays by as much as 12 percent over other periods of the year. Explanations given are overeating and postponing needed medical care until after the holidays are over. But I also believe melancholia is a reason for the increase in death. I personally have already begun to fight with bouts of a creeping melancholy that often comes over me as this time of year approaches. It's a lifelong problem I've had to deal with, for some reason.

My grandmother suffered terrible depression during the holidays, but she had just cause. Her first child died in infancy at or near Christmas Eve, and it was a black memory she was never able to shake. And in fact, she herself died on Christmas Eve. I find that during the holidays I miss her more than at other times of the year. I long for those long-ago family gatherings, singing carols and eating around her table, my grandfather handing out the presents piled so excitingly high beneath the tree whose limbs were dwarfed by comparison.

I miss my childhood. I miss my grandparents, and my mother. I miss other people who have died or gone missing from my life. Around the holidays I find that I become a sadsack, longing for the ghosts of Christmas past. Or something like that.

My dad has a thing he says about making new memories, and I know it is true. Every day we're making memories, and there will probably come a time when more recent memories cause me melancholy. They already do. Just this morning I laid in bed yearning for the newness of last year's Christmas, the excitement of our first Christmas spent together, here in our house, the relish the SO got from hanging lights outside, designing the display, and so diligently turning them on each night at dark. He was super excited by Christmas and it was fun to watch him, like a child, glorying in the decorated tree in the corner, his first one in 17 years, he said. We hung stockings for the dog and the cat on the mantle. We made a fire almost every night.

The three previous Christmases for me had been pretty miserable, despite my older son's attempts to save them. There was the one spent in Florida, in 80 degree weather, swimming in the swimming pool on Christmas Eve, which somehow didn't feel right. Neither did the absence of almost all the other "traditions." Me and my SO were new and his phone calls caused a yearning I fought hard to overcome. But that Christmas was an improvement over the previous two ruined ones, when my marriage was coming apart, and when divorce was impending.

Before that, well, there had been many big family gatherings, immediate family and extended family: the year it snowed and we built a snowman at midnight, the year we rented a cabin in the mountains of West Virginia, the year my grandson was born and we all lavished gifts on a baby who could just barely sit up, the year he spent Christmas Eve in the hospital with pneumonia, the year Mother was sick with cancer, the year my dear mother-in-law was in the nursing home, the years of the kids growing up, turkey dinners, cookie-baking and candy-making, nights playing Santa Claus till nearly dawn, and before that, me with a child in my belly and great hope for the future.

The holidays are a marker for the passing of the decades, the changes a person's life takes, for all the memories which seem to be felt so much more acutely than at other times. And mine have often been messy, both my life changes and my holiday memories. It's easy to fall into despair over the missed chances, the mistakes made, the great disappointments, and yes, the betrayals. All of those emotions are also in the mix of the holidays.

Maybe the key to getting through is to recognize that the holidays are, after all, just another time of year, another day, a week, a month. It's partly because of when they fall, just as the season is changing, dead leaves on the ground, the world fading to shades of brown and gray. Birds are mostly gone. Flowers have stopped blooming. And it's also because they go on for so long, added to by the in-your-face advertisements and the way Christmas decorations go up in stores before Halloween now. What happened to carolers? Where have the greetings of "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" gone? And people shop all year now, so it's really not a big deal to give and get anymore either. I miss hearing a school choir. Maybe I should find one and go listen. They're bound to still have Christmas concerts somewhere.

I guess it is what you make it. Memories should be a happy thing instead of a longing. Yesterday morning my SO said when I'm down I bring everything around me down, too, because it's such a contrast from my usual laughter and sunny outlook -- his words not mine. He said I don't wear depression well. It shows so obviously on me. I asked him for help, to remind me how important it is to live each day for its own sake, for the gift it is and for the time that will never be recaptured. He said he wants an easy button to push. Love is compromise. So OK -- I'm searching for that easy button to give him.

Thank God for this man, for his patience and soft touch. I owe it to him to find a way through my holiday woe. I will try harder -- beginning today.

Onward ....