NO Holiday Blues!
A woman told me that she used to wait eleven months for Christmas and it HAD to be all that she expected. She said she felt like “a pressure cooker.” That kind of intense need is what leads to holiday blues and worse. Now just in case things don’t go as you have them planned – someone gets sick, someone missed the plane, gets lost on the road, begs out, fights with you, has a tree fall on their car – let’s set things up so you don’t get the blues. If Christmas morning comes and it looks like all your dreams are coming apart, stop! Start humming “I’ve got a New Attitude” and do these things.
Pick out your favorite music. Is it White Christmas? Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer? I Heard it through the Grapevine? Whatever it is, put it on to play and sing along – LOUD! Break into a dance.
Find the popcorn, and put that out. Get out the ingredients for cookies. Make a list of what you will need for dinner (if the food was being brought by the guy whose engine died) – a little chicken from the store? A can of gravy? Refrigerator rolls? Cookie sprinkles? Make it easy. Dash out and get it – tell the grocery clerk Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas – which ever you prefer. But cheer them up too!
Get out your favorite movies – Christmas in Connecticut, The Blues Brothers, Lord of the Rings.
Is there anyone you can invite over? Here’s what you say, “It turns out my plans were unexpectedly changed. I would love for you to come by this afternoon. I’m making cookies.”
OK, put on the music. Sing along! Get the food going – even if you’ve settled on a bowl of Rice Krispies. Make the cookies, cut out shapes. No cutters? Use a glass turned upside down.
Put out the cookies. Let people frost them.
Put out the games and a jigsaw puzzle.
Put on the movie.
Now dance, laugh, play.
Feeling like you can relate to the pressure cooker analogy? Call me. I’ll tell you how she fixed it.
Every Jewish community has “things for Jews to do on Christmas day. Look around and you can join in.