Why do so many people seem to get so sad or even depressed during the holidays? Aside from the obvious recent loss of a life or relationship, seemingly happy and contented people still get the holiday blues.
Let’s not blame the obvious punching bag of shorter days and grayer weather; those are always the initial culprits. What I am seeing across the board is the relentless inundation of commercialism, societal status-seeking, celebrity hero-worship, and the never-ending inflation, which is wreaking havoc on people, men and women alike.
All Those Ads
Commercialism and advertisers have made it impossible to avoid being constantly barraged with images of what we don’t have and what we would love to have. Every screen you look at all day long is filled with thousands of pop-ups. And we have no choice. All social media, every television channel, movie streaming service, cable service, etc., are paid high dollars to bombard you every minute of every day. We used to have the option to block our phone numbers from solicitors and unwanted sales calls, but we no longer get that courtesy. Our rights to privacy and to keep our personal tastes or interests private, to ourselves, are no longer respected.
Social media, in particular, is paid to monitor every click and then use clickbait to pull you into a wormhole of sites you never get out of. Look at Pinterest, for instance. It takes an innocent search for, let’s say, nail art design ideas, like the Christmas-decorated nails we are all seeing over the next couple of weeks, and once you have searched for it once, Pinterest will be bombarding you with nail art junk. Everything from press-on nails to nail art brushes to polish. It never ends. Facebook also has a knack for taking all your private searches and using them against you by selling the information to advertisers. It tracks every click, every group, every friend, and the list goes on and on.
Please do not think that using any site’s “opt-out” option will keep you from being accosted day and night by related advertisements and commercials. It’s really quite sickening. I rarely go on social media for longer than a few minutes to post my art or a story, and then I’m out. It still does nothing to stop the insanity. Your internet service provider, cell provider, cable company, or streaming service is selling your information to anyone who will pay for it so they can get those companies’ ad dollars.
A Problem
So what is the problem? The problem is that most people are easily manipulated into thinking they need something or desperately want it. I’ll tell you right now, no one needs most of the things shoved down our throats. This unsatisfied desire for a good makes us uneasy and agitated because we want. And we want a lot. But is it necessary, or will it make you happy? No. Not in the long run. Most things are made not to last, are disposable, and most things bought on impulse will only appease the greed monster for a short time. Time and again, we see that once you get what you want, you start wanting more. Televisions, as they keep getting bigger and fancier, are a prime example.
Status Climbers
Let’s get into the other culprit in holiday blues, the social status climb. This is no new phenomenon. Humans have been clawing their way up the social ladder since the beginning of life. Biblically speaking, Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel are prime examples of this. Both groups wanted to be more than they were, were willing to lie or cheat to get it, and did so to their detriment. I don’t care if you don’t believe in a god or the Bible. The stories are equally poignant for either side of the argument. That being said, this kind of greed or envy has its consequences. If we attain that status, we have to keep impressing and climbing a mountain with no summit. There is always someone with better and higher clout, and you won’t get to be on top, and certainly not for long if you do. This causes a spiral of desire and success, followed by brief satisfaction and then disenchantment.
It is in the disenchantment phase that we can become depressed and down on ourselves for not having the stature we covet. Teens are especially vulnerable to this, as they deal daily with the social ladder of clicks, wealth, skill, or talent. Nowhere is this pressure more pronounced than in high school, where every single kid wants to fit in somewhere. When they don’t fit in with the group they want to, or any group, then comes depression. I remember, in high school, always wanting to be with the popular kids. I wasn’t. Oh, I had friends in the popular groups, but in reality, I was a bit of a geek and a little on the brainy side, which did nothing for my social presence.
What we often forget, or don’t even think about, is that in the grand scheme of things, none of those people will be following you through life to keep telling you that you aren’t part of their social group. Everyone finds their people in the end, and life goes on. As an adult status seeker, the basics still apply. No one goes home and thinks about what you do or don’t have, what title you do or don’t have, or how amazing you are or aren’t because you have attained a higher level of success. Nope, they go home and think about their own lives and what they are missing. Status climbing is high on the list of why we get bummed out. Instead of being content with what we have, we are pummeled with reasons why we shouldn’t be.
Instead of always looking to climb one more rung or get ahead of one more person, we should remember to look down the ladder for a couple of reasons. First, it never hurts to look back to where you were a year or more ago so you can feel good about what you’ve already accomplished, but we don’t often do that. Second, when we look down the ladder or back at what we have put behind us, we can see others’ success more clearly. It’s so important to remember that you could have so much less, which hopefully makes you more appreciative of what you do have and where you are in life.
Hero Worship
Celebrity hero worship or idolizing is a huge problem in society today. Our children want the lives celebrities have; they want what celebrities have and want fame at any cost. This is so prevalent that social media is overrun with our children, women, and men doing all sorts of risqué and inappropriate things to get attention, hoping they will gain instant fame and fortune. Does it happen? Yes, it does, and that’s why they continue to go after the pot at the end of the rainbow. They don’t think about the fact that a famous young actor or musician, for that matter, spends all their time admiring themselves and doing all they can to get attention for their careers or their persona. It’s vanity at its most extreme. The worst part is that, in most cases, these children don’t realize that some of these famous people have families of their own that they often ignore for weeks and months. They travel all over the world for work to maintain their celebrity, while their families are raised by a third-party stranger. Then they wonder why their children become neurotic later on.
Those who covet their lives don’t see the cost to the celebrity or to everyone around them. In this case, idolizing these profiles, followed by the inability to attain the goal of becoming like them, causes sadness or despondency. This isn’t limited to children or adolescents, because adults often fall into this spiral as well. It’s okay not to be like them. We need to drill that into ourselves. Yes, it would be great to live a fanciful life as they do, but it has a cost. They often sell their souls for fame.
I see so many young, beautiful women parading their half-naked bodies to become famous and be followed, only to be let down when they don’t get what they want.
They sacrifice their modesty to predatory people for what- another click, another like button tapped?
Unreasonable Expectations
Recently, the holidays have been a major cause of depression among people. A large portion of society gets the doldrums at this time of year because worries about who they have to shop for, how much they need to spend, and where the money has to come from keep them in a bitter battle to make everything happen for everyone. Stop!
I am willing to bet that few people can remember everything they got for Christmas or Hanukkah last year, let alone the year before. I know I can’t. I often don’t remember a single gift. Why? Because my memories are of time with family and laughs with friends. And it’s not the details of conversation but the snippets of smiles and feelings that I recall.
We spend so much time trying to get the best gift, spend the most money on a particular person, impress a boss or coworker, or show off to our group of friends, that we end up overspending to prove we have enough money to spread the wealth in gift-giving. We put ourselves in a bind and often in debt. This won’t make us happier or more content. It won’t bring us holiday cheer, but the opposite. In the end, at some point you come back to the ground and realize you overdid it, or you gave, and it wasn’t appreciated, which in itself makes you melancholy or glum. I mean, we all want our gifts to be loved, right? And when that doesn’t happen, we take it personally. Trust me, by January, they won’t remember what you gave them, but they will remember how you treated them or whether you gave them a warm hug or smile during the holidays. And those are free.
Inflation has made the price of goods skyrocket. No lie. A year before COVID hit, toothpaste was ninety-nine cents a tube, and now you’re lucky if you can get one for five dollars on sale. What has this world come to? Everything from food to gas, clothing to toys, movies to dinners out has doubled, tripled, or even worse. This puts so much pressure on our psyches when we start thinking about shopping for everyone we love, even those we like or want to impress.
It is the single argument for not killing yourselves to spend on silly or unimportant things. Truly. It is not stingy to limit your spending to your immediate family. There is no shame in not getting your boss something, or an acquaintance at church, or even your friend. All of these people, and I’ll include family, all of them like or love you and will, if they receive nothing from you. And it’s ok, I promise.
So many of us make ourselves miserable for this entire season and then the months after, as the bills trickle in. The pressure to buy, buy, buy, buries us into a depressed state. So what do we do, or what can we do?
Some Reasonable Solutions
One, make a list of a handful of people you absolutely want to get a gift for, or have to.
Leave it at that. Spouse, parent, children. That’s it. Even if they don’t need a gift to love you, I assure you they don’t. They know your home’s financial climate better than anyone. So don’t sweat it.
Want to be happy and not be depressed? Spend some quality time with them, with your friends, with co-workers or acquaintances. What’s a good way to do that without breaking your piggy bank? How about a potluck game night or a movie night. Instead of everyone buying a gift for each person, why not do a white elephant gift exchange and swap them. Google has a plethora of really fun party ideas where everyone chips in, and no one is out of pocket for much. And guess what? The memories and laughter will last far longer than that coffee mug you bought for Susan two floors down at the office.
Your children will remember the time you spent with them playing a family game or doing something they are interested in for much longer. And you won’t get down in the dumps afterward. You’ll think back with a smile on your face at the silly things people do when they relax and have fun. It’s not about the money spent; it’s just not.
We Do It to Ourselves
The world today is so overwhelming and overrun with have-tos. But in reality, we put that on ourselves. I used to stress about the holidays, beginning in October and continuing through Christmas Day. I remember the twenty-sixth of December was the date I could not wait for, so it would all be over. That’s no way to live.
My husband and I decided not to buy each other gifts on holidays when we got married. We also decided not to turn our son into some materialistic little monster. On our son’s first Christmas, we did what every parent does. We buried the tree under gifts for him. Honestly. And you know what happened? He opened a few with a happy face and great excitement, and then he began to cry because he was so overwhelmed, with just too much, too much. He didn’t even remember one toy he got that Christmas the following year. Not one.
The following year, we got him one gift. The week before, we asked him to go through his toys and pick five. He didn’t know why, but he did it. We then took him to a local shelter and asked him to hand out his toys to some of the children. He did it. We let him play with the children while my husband and I served the meal, then we went home. The following year, my son remembered and asked if we were going back. He had already selected a bunch of toys for the children. He had told us the year before that he hadn’t brought enough for everyone. That was a memory we didn’t forget. That was the thing our son remembered the following year, because he didn’t even remember what we bought him.
Each year since then, we would ask what he remembered, and his answers were always about the meal or who came over. He remembered what he did and with whom. Not the trinkets he got that lay lonely under the bed or in the yard year after year. I can tell you that in all the twenty years we have made those changes, we have not felt depressed.
Ignore the Craze
We don’t do Black Friday or Cyber Monday. We don’t go crazy shopping for every Tom, Dick, or Harry. We get simple gifts for our son, parents, and sometimes adult siblings, and we sleep peacefully at night.
I’ll say one last thing. If someone doesn’t like or love you because you didn’t go into debt to spend a wad on the holidays, they are not worth your mental health to begin with. Have a nice get-together with the people you like in your life. That is a corporate endeavor, and enjoy the time with them. They will remember hospitality far longer than a thing.
Be happy and joyous, people. Don’t sweat or fear, and definitely don’t grieve over a single day in the year. That day is only twenty-four hours, and it’s gone for another three hundred and sixty-four. May you all have contentment and peace, and may your days be filled with family, friends, and love.
(Published on Vocal)
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