Got Holiday Spirit?
It seems that some of us do not get excited over the prospect of baking the holiday cookies, hanging the holiday house lights, and surfing the holiday net to purchase the holiday gifts.
If you align yourself with the Grinch end of the holiday gamut we run every December, you may suffer from SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Also called winter-onset depression, SAD symptoms usually begin in late fall or early winter and go away sometime after the Oscars are awarded.
SAD is more common in women than in men. (Duh! Who bakes all the cookies? Wraps all the presents? Trims the tree? Returns all the the gifts that are the wrong color-shape-size?) Although some children and teenagers get SAD, it usually doesn't start in people younger than 20 years of age... in other words, the young have limited immunity because they haven't finished accumulating the holiday memories that will later make them ecstatic or suicidal during the holidays.
But take heart: You, too, can get goose bumps on your arms and tears in your eyes as you drift into a sea of holiday nostalgia. It's easy. Just steal three minutes from your day and click the link below. If there are kids in your family, invite them to pull up a chair. Be sure to click the site each time it prompts you.
Enjoy!
(If you celebrate Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, you may need to do independent research to find a similar feel-good site.)
Here's a holiday spirit tweaker... share your best or worst worst holiday memory with other readers. Misery... and joy... love company!
posted by Yakpate at 8:04 AM
11 Comments:
One year, I think I was 10, we got an ATV as a family gift. Pretty fun for a farm kid!
1:27 PM
I can't think of a favorite memory because I love Christmas so much that each year holds a special place for me. I remember once our tree fell down and Dad ended up tying it to nails he put in the wall. I remember my weird uncle putting a bottle of Joy perfume up the bum of a SANTA candle for my mother to dig out and find. I remember Laurie and I dressing up on Christmas Eve and she was a doll and I was a Christmas angel. I remember my older son crying when Frosty the Snowman melted, yet crying more when I wouldn't let him watch the video again. I remember my younger son being too afraid to sit on Santa's lap, which thrilled me, because I didn't have to stand in a long line at the mall. But I mostly remember giving gifts to people I hardly knew, or handing a guy with a sign at a busy intersection a $5 dollar bill and him looking at me with piercing blue eyes and saying "Bless You." The woman at the Salvation Army station at our mall didn't look like she was getting much "business," so I gave her a small check today.
Happy Christmas everybody!! Go make some wonderful memories.
8:05 PM
Jutilda, I LOVE your memories... I would give anything to see you and Laurie dressed up on Christmas!
When I was five years old, Toys for Tots (or some similar organization) came to our house to collect used toys for "poor children who had none." My brother and I felt so bad for them that we gave away all of our toys... and a local radio station featured a story about how generous we were! (Or that's what my Dad told us, anyway!)
I remember laying in bed on Christmas Eve trying to go to sleep... and wondering what it meant to be unconscious... where did I go when I was asleep?Eight hours doing nothing lasted forever!
Most of all, though, I remember the smell of our tree... that wonderful fragrance that most kids today will never know, thanks to the ubiquitous artificial tree!
9:42 PM
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1:42 AM
Judy has covered so much of my great Christmas memories, and then there was the CHristmas when I first moved to LA and my roommate and I decorated our tree with our dangly earrings and draped our thigh-high stockings around it like garland. (Ah, the 80s.) But honestly my very BEST one was last year. We had just closed escrow on our new house, were living out of boxes, managed to unpack the box of the rattiest of all our ornaments and pull Christmas together for our daughter, who at 2 was really getting the whole Christmas thing. Seeing her jump up and down squealing and clapping when she saw her new pink tricycle under the tree was absolutely priceless.
(We won't go into the bad Christmas memory of when my college boyfriend gave me shampoo for Christmas.)
1:43 AM
It's de thought that counts, Laurie!
9:23 PM
Ah, c'mon, Laurie, tell the shampoo story! One year a boyfriend gave me a pinecone he picked up off the ground. Didn't even bother to remove the cobwebs. Now that was special! haha
11:44 AM
Thanks Pat for the link. It's beautiful and I've already forwarded to friends and family. Best Christmas for me was in my 20's...my mother solicited the help of my best friend (unbeknownst to me) to buy me some camera lenses (I was a photojournalist in college). She borrowed money to do this and to say the present was a shock is certainly an understatement. My mother never ceased to amaze me on a daily basis. Can't think of a real bad Christmas (probably because my mom was so great) but last week we had to tell our 8 year old that there was no physical Santa...that led to many tears (one of his good friends told him just as we were about to sit down for dinner at his friend's house)...of course we told him about the magic and that we believe, but it was traumatic...we had really hoped to just make it through this year but it was not meant to be.
8:43 AM
Roy... I will never forget when my niece finally admitted to her son that there was no Santa Clause. He was 9 years old and still believed, even when all of his friends didn't. His ryes filled with tears and he said to his Mom, "You mean you were lying all those times when you left cookies and milk for Santa?"
9:56 AM
My fondest memories are...when my mom & aunt did the paper route for me and let me sleep in, when me & my sister got to beg and open ONE present every Christmas Eve, being there when DJ was little and got his presents, waiting for Grandpa to get there every year, Christmas breakfast with my family, and a certain $50 bill I got one year when I was probably about 8...and now the excitement of Jag & Bro is so fun!!!
Worst memory...was my baby's first Christmas when he just turned one, I had a bike and some other stuff to put together and my now EX-husband helped with NOTHING...he was passed out with his pants down around his ankles in our bathroom floor...but to turn it to a better note...My AUNT PAT was there to save the night and stayed up with me putting everything together:):):):)
10:16 AM
I will never forget my 3 yr old son after opening his presents he ran down the stairs and opened the front door. We were all wondering what he was up to (there was never a dull moment with him!) He looked up in the sky, with big bright eyes and said, "Thank you Santa, wherever you are!" It was sooo sweet!!!
Christmas mornings with my mom,sister,aunt and Grandpa....nothing better in the world! Well I take that back..now we our son's there too!!
10:40 AM
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