Post-Christmas Blues and Something to Be Grateful For

It's that time of the year again. The presents have been opened, the family has come to visit, the food has been eaten, the clock reads about four thirty in the afternoon and that sinking feeling hits: Christmas is over. The day that you've been waiting for for days, weeks, and months, depending on your age, has come and gone. The "Christmas feel" that has been mounting all month, reaching its climax on Christmas Eve is no longer there. Now is the time when thoughts of returning to work and school creep in. The realization that rent is due, books need to be purchased, schedules need to be finalized; the Christmas rush may be through, but a different kind of rush is about to take off.

However, Christmas is not the sole occasion that this sort of glumness accompanies. Personally, I get these "Post-Holiday Blues" at the end of Thanksgiving Day as well as after my birthday in January, although the Christmas Day experience is by far the most depressing. Why does this happen?

Christmas is the most magical time of year. There is a special feeling that comes from listening to Christmas music, snow falling (sometimes), special Christmas events and parties, helping other people in any sort of capacity, and being with family. But that's the problem. Christmas is the most magical time of year. Magical. And, well....magic isn't real. And while the good experiences and feelings we have around Christmastime are more than authentic and real, what isn't real (or at least enduring) is the vacationing, the perpetual sweets, the lavish decorations, the irresponsibility, the napping, the presents, the whimsical days spent reading a fun book or staying up until all hours playing games. When I realize that I have to face reality again in a few days, that I'll have to start going back to classes and do unpleasant things like homework again, my perfect little Christmas world is shattered.


Hence the post-holiday depression. Quite a first-world problem, isn't it?

However, it is something that can really get me down if I don't do something about it. But what can be done?? I know I'm not the only person in the world who gets the post-holiday blues, and as a result, there are infinite methods through which it can be overcome. My own personal method is to find things that I'm excited for or grateful for in my old humdrum life at school. Whenever I get feeling particularly down, I try to specifically think about my life in Provo, since, especially during Winter semester, that is where I spend most of my time. Even though there will be rent to pay, textbooks to read, papers to write, and tests to take, there are a lot of good things that go with it and things that I will only be able to experience and do at this point in my life.

I'm not really sure how this applies, but
it made me laugh, so there.

Rabbi Harold Kushner said, "If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul." Sometimes I am a lot better at being grateful for the good things in my life right now than at other times. But I have seen that when I do find the good things in my life and am grateful for them that it becomes much easier to be grateful, I feel much, much happier and the Christmas blues don't seem to have as powerful of an impact on me.

Perhaps the thing I should be most grateful for in response to the post-holiday blues is the very fact that I was able to have such a great Christmas. I got to go home and be with the people I really love and enjoy spending time with. I was able to vacation, eat perpetual sweets, enjoy lavish decorations, be irresponsible, take naps as I pleased, and spend whimsical days reading fun books and staying up until all hours playing games.

So, while I'm not ready to go to class tomorrow and start all the inevitable reading assignments, I'm considerably more ready than I was on the 25th at 4:30 PM. The post-Christmas blues are all but gone.