I wrote much of this over a couple of years, and I’m late posting it this year. Typically, it would go up on New Year’s Day, although it does take time for many of these conditions to settle in. We’re looking at the holidays in the rear-view mirror, as the cold, snowy “bleak mid-winter” has really set in. It started snowing yesterday, continued all night, and is still going today. They – the folks paid to do this – haven’t come to shovel out yet, but that’s ok. I don’t really have anywhere to go. The giddy joy of New Year’s Resolutions has dropped off because, well, it’s the end of January and it’s not that I have tapered off. The truth is, I never started. Added to the winter doldrums, there may be a number of “flying-under-the-radar” psychological issues that have gone undetected, as we hope they’ll go away too, like the resolutions and grand intentions. Primary among these psychological disorders is what I call After-Holiday Anxiety, or AHA. Advice columnists will advise seeking therapeutical assistance as, to my knowledge, the pharmaceutical people are still a few years away from a medical cure – tablets, a vaccine, scented candles, a special lightbulb perhaps. If something were available, I’d surely have seen it advertised by someone turned annoyingly perky on the nightly news.
By this time in late January, one of the signs is Post-Decoration Syndrome, PDS. This condition is exhibited by the complete inability to put Christmas decorations away in a timely fashion. You’ll find homes with lights and wreaths displayed well into January, some even extending into February. These are often in communities where the Decoration Police have let their guard down. Some people can’t bear to part with Christmas trees. We sincerely hope that trees you can still see through in the windows are artificial, because if they’re not, the Fire Department needs some notification. When friends and family start noticing that the wreath on the front door is now referred to as a “Spring Wreath”, or the sleigh is still out with an Easter Bunny now in the driver’s seat, a reality check is called for. Of course, so folks have simply replaced their inflatable Santa, elves, and reindeer with new inflatable bunnies and eggs. That’s another disorder, called Compulsive Yard Decoration Distemper, and will be discussed in another blog. It’s too be a topic to adequately cover here.
Next is Christmas Card Paralysis. There was a time, and I’ve written extensively about this, when folks sent out hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cards. They’d be dutifully written out by hand and mailed by the first week of December. That was done so that the rest of us would know who we forgot to send to, and more could be mailed out to arrive some time before Christmas Eve, or even right up to Epiphany. Sometimes, we even waited on a few to see if we were still on someone’s Christmas card list. If nothing came from them, we take them off the list. A failsafe plan until a letter arrives from them the next year explaining why they were on a tropical island or backpacking in the Urals and couldn’t send out cards. OK, back on the list. Now, however, more and more people are saying, “the heck with sending cards”, or words to that effect. We sent out about sixty this year, and got back roughly half that – mostly from mail carrier, newspaper delivery, and our local car repair place. My sister-in-law like to review everyone’s cards, followed by comments like – “You didn’t get one from . . . . We did.“ Now we feel badly really left out.
There is Gift Return Delirium. Most of the shopping anxiety has been replaced by the stress of holiday gift acknowledgement and/or returns. What if somebody asked me if I liked the socks they sent? What socks – did I see those socks, and if I did, what happened to them? I might have exchanged them a driving cap I liked, but who knows? If they were delivered, did I open them before Christmas, and if so, did I know they were holiday gifts, to be placed under the tree? Worse, did I send the sender something too? We had that problem with my brother and his family, so we made a decision to just stop – we really didn’t need that assortment of cheeses, sausages, and crackers. There were just so many things arriving, I don’t know. UPS, Amazon, and FedEx were dropping stuff off three, four, five times a day. Did I leave anything on the back porch? I’ll just relax, pull some turkey from the freezer and make myself a nice turkey sandwich. Oh, no. Our daughter took all the leftover turkey home with her,
And then, of course, we have the Holiday Schedule Psychosis. Back in our early married days, there was a great deal of shuttle-diplomacy. We’d carefully construct the Christmas Eve/Christmas Day/Christmas Week to New Year’s Day timetable that aimed to keep everyone happy and shared the time equally. It didn’t really do that, of course, but family members seemed to be pleasant about it. Now, we have extended family, good friends that we want to see, and people that we don’t want to be alone, so the holiday gatherings now stretch out to somewhere between Martin Luther King and Valentine’s Days. It takes a political campaign coordinator to oversee all of these dates, times, and locations, and it doesn’t begin to account for all the ones that we texted saying, “we’ll call you after the holidays so we can get together”. The family that are far enough away will get a phone call. But wait, is it meal time? Will they be opening their presents? Is it nap time? (That’s a “thing” in my family – we’ll nap specialists.) Dare I nap, and if I do, will it interrupt my sleep?
Did the holidays truly meet our expectations? That’s something to review each and every year. This past year was a good one. But for some people, it never really measures up. We’re not quite sure what we expected, but that wasn’t it. Just another day with some presents mixed in. I always feel that way about New Year’s Eve. To me, it’s never been anything beyond sleep deprivation, causing a longer than usual nap on New Year’s Day. Our “de-decorating” happens anywhere during the week between the holidays. Everything has to come down, the tree is banished to the basement for another year, the house returning to normal with a huge sigh of relief.
Now I’m feeling very melancholy. Particularly as I’ve worn all the new clothes, read most of the books I got, and worked my way through the bottles of wine. The let-down takes over. All that build-up takes time to back itself off, like climbing a mountain. You reach the summit, admire the view, and then reality hits that you have to go back down. Maybe there’s a pill I could take . . . . . probably not. Should I call a therapist? No, this is their busiest time of year. We’ll just enjoy the storms sweeping across the country, causing unspeakable blizzards or flooding in places other than our own. Happy Bleak Midwinter, Everyone.
I'm Thinking...No! 