Are you looking forward to the Holidays or do they make you depressed?

I love the holidays! I can see how they can be depressing for people who have lost a loved one around that time or that they just miss having them around at this time. It can be very depressing for people who feel alone or don’t have family close to them to spend the holidays with.

I am tentatively looking forward to them… I bought a tree today, and I think I will actually have some time off between Christmas and New Year’s this year, which will be nice.

If your holidays were wonderful as a child and as a young adult, consider it time to give back to society. Would you be intersted in volunteering for meals-on-wheels, where you deliver dinners to shut-ins? Do you have a talent? Of course you do…contact a local retirement home or any other facility that houses those in need. They are chockful of quality people that need mental stimulation. Arrange to take a musical instrument, book, or some board games. It will be as fullfilling for you as it is for them.

Meh, I’m just looking forward to time off lol.

I’m looking forward to this Christmas. First time in four years.

Looking forward to them. Christmas still has magic. If you disagree there’s a 101% chance I wouldn’t like you irl.

It used to be such fun when I was a little kid, but now it’s a little depressing. I kind of hate growing up in that aspect…the magic fades. I try to distract myself but I always end up a little teary-eyed during the holidays. It sucks to grow up.
@digitalimpression – sorry, please don’t hate me!

To babybadger -There are problems for me during the holidays, but I find that when I work with young children I forget about the sad and enjoy and go with the flow. I love spending time with my granddaughter and having been in amateur theater in my younger days, and still a bit of a ham, love going to her day care center to do Storytime Plus for her and the children. Their enthusiasm and joy when they listen to stories and dance and sing along with me lifts my spirits. Who was it that said, ” When the voices of children are heard on the green, and laughter is heard on the hill, my heart is at rest within my breast and everything else stands still”? I volunteer for two children’s day care centers and it does more for me than the children. Try volunteering. It may lift your spirits too!

@babybadger I don’t. =) I just dislike when people find a way to not like things that are awesome. Like an emo kid… what’s their deal anyway?

I don’t like the pressure of finding gifts for all my relatives. I don’t want to be an asshole grinch, but money is tight.

Sometimes the holidays can be a little depressing for a number of reasons. If you live in a cold dark climate like I do, that’s depressing enough, but getting together with scads of relatives and trying to be cheerful amidst a lot of noise, trying to get the house in order, trying to buy gifts, spending money that’s scarce, etc., can be stressful and depressing. I like the spirit of the holidays and the love among close family members, but I hate the hoopla and media representation of it.

I like Thanksgiving. I make killer pie. The food is great!

I’m not so fond of Christmas, even though it has good food, it has an awful lot of other crap to do.

But I get depressed due to the shortened days and less light. So it doesn’t matter. The holidays are always a tough time for me.

@fizzbanger

“I don’t like the pressure of finding gifts for all my relatives. I don’t want to be an asshole grinch, but money is tight.”

I totally understand that.

I’m perfectly happy giving a gift to someone that I think they’ll really appreciate, especially if they can’t otherwise afford it. On those occasions, they greatest gift they can give me in return is enjoying and using the one I gave to them.
I actually prefer that they don’t stress their finances getting me another shirt, pair of sox, etc.

I refuse to let any outside influence make me feel anything I don’t want to feel. I hate being depressed and I refuse to allow it.

@Brian1946 Oh yeah, I try to tell them we don’t need anything, but wind up feeling obligated to pick something up since no matter what, they will give us cash, gift cards, little trinkets, etc. I don’t want to be a big fat taker of gifts.

I like all the traditional holiday stuff (food, cocktails, wood fires…). I hate the shopping madness.

@fizzbanger

“I hate the shopping madness.”

Same here. Luckily I’ve been able to reduce my gift shopping to exchanging gift cards with my brother.

I’m relatively indifferent. Thanksgiving my parents either visit, or sometimes we are invited over a friends house. Sometimes we spend thanksgiving with my inlaws, but not often.

I like to make my few Chanukah yummies one night for traditions sake. It’s fine with me if it is just my husband and I. I don’t care about trading gifts, athough I do usually buy some Chocolate gelt to give to my husband and Jewish friends.

For Christmas, not my holiday, I love to see Nutcracker, and here where I live now I usually make it to see the local Christmas parade (very small) which I think is nice. I also love a few weeks of Christmas music. It saddens me a little that Christmas is somewhat dissappointing to my husband. He had those never can live up to again type of fabulous childhood Christmas’. He misses the magic and the surprise I think. We spend Christmas with his family about every other year, do the whole present thing, all the special foods. It never lives up to what he wish it would be I think.

I have a love/hate relationship with the holidays.

I love Thanksgiving (the food, time with family), but I hate that I work nine days straight leading up to Thanksgiving (for a total of 135 hours). It’s our busiest week of the year.

I love Christmas (the music and lights especially), but I find it melancholly as it’s the end of yet another year. I also tend to dwell on the many who have died.

Overall, I agree. January is a bit of a relief.

I hate holidays. I hate the awful commercials, the packed stores, trying to find gifts for people more out of obligation than actually wanting to buy gifts for them (especially when money is tight, and these people never use the gift anyway, regardless of how thoughtful it is), being stuck in such a hot and humid state during a season that is supposed to be pleasant, etc. I don’t have any specifically negative experiences with the holidays, nor do I dislike them because they remind me of anyone who has died. I just dread them.

I cook for Thanksgiving and Christmas usually but my family is so divided now for various reasons. It isn’t the holiday itself I hate, it’s the reminder that I am missing family and the things about the holiday are forever changed because those people are gone. You can’t “refuse” to be depressed if you’re clinically depressed, anymore than you can refuse to have Cancer if you have it.

I find the holidays quite lonely so I tend to want them to pass by as swiftly as possible. I try to be sociable and see friends and family but all I really want to do is curl up with my man and shut the world away.

@Pied_Pfeffer, thanks for the great suggestion! I actually have gone out and fed the homeless on Thanksgiving and on other days that aren’t holidays. I also have a child in Kenya I’ve been sponsoring for three years. She was four when I got her and now she’s seven. I also bought them four hens and a rooster which has brought the family added income as well as eggs and meat. I have to give back. :-)