Recently I was chatting with someone who had been having a tough week leading up to Christmas. They mentioned how they loved this time of year, which made their bad week all the more painful.
Even during a good year, holidays can be difficult. We may associate a particular holiday with unpleasant memories. We may place too many expectations on others or ourselves. Or we may be sorry when the celebration ends and we have to return to “real life.” (Does that mean the life we were living during the celebration wasn’t real?) The past year has been so upside down that everything is even more fraught with emotion.
If you love Christmas, nothing is going to replace or make up for it. But you might consider finding ways to make your everyday life so special that Christmas (or Halloween or your birthday) is just one of many special moments, rather than the high point of the year, after which everything comes crashing down.
How can we fill our year with special moments?
Celebrate minor holidays
Four years ago I wrote about how we can use minor holidays to make a difference. Consider looking at a list of holidays and picking some that move you. You can celebrate them for their own sake (have a slice of pie on Pi Day), or use them to make a difference (bake a pie and give it away). Either way, putting more holidays on your calendar gives you more to look forward to.
Take Sabbath breaks
I’ve written before about how taking weekly Sabbath breaks can restore us and give us more time to love others. If you’re feeling down because you are going back to your regular schedule after having some time off for the holidays, explore the possibility of taking one day out of every seven to rest. That gives you approximately 52 days off every year!
Arrange for little surprises throughout the year
Ordinary life can sometimes seem dull, especially right now when we are limiting activities outside our homes and using Zoom to socialize. One possible antidote to that is to find ways to surprise yourself. You know the feeling of reaching into a pocket and discovering money you’d forgotten you’d left there? We’re going for that. And while having a housemate arrange these surprises for us can be helpful, you can do this even if you live alone.
Here are some things I’ve done for myself without help from the people who live with me:
- I’ve left chocolate and notes around the house to discover later. The key is to pick hiding places where you aren’t likely to discover your surprise right away. Just make sure that, if you’re hiding chocolate, these places aren’t so obscure that you won’t find your treats for years. For example, I picked a mug that I use occasionally but not frequently, and I put a chocolate in it. A few weeks after I hid the chocolate, I pulled out the mug and was genuinely surprised to find a mini peanut butter cup in it.
- I’ve set reminders on my phone, telling myself to do something that I enjoy. For a few months now I’ve been picking a couple of days at random and setting reminders such as “Listen to your favorite song” or “Fix yourself a cup of hot cocoa.” I don’t overthink or make a point of remembering the dates I choose, which means I have a moment of joy when my phone tells me to take a half hour to play Pokémon Go.
- I’ve put myself on long waiting lists for library books. I’ve done this in the past with no intention of surprising myself; I simply wanted to read a popular book and had to wait for a while. Recently, however, I did this deliberately. I used NPR’s Book Concierge to pick several books that interested me, and then I searched for the books in my library’s catalog. If a book had a lengthy waitlist, I requested it. I’m looking forward to email messages from the library letting me know each time a book is available.
Some people say (and I agree) that “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is the perfect 2020 Christmas song. In the version that first appeared in Meet Me in St. Louis, it was about enjoying Christmas and hoping for a better future in the midst of a difficult time.
Someday soon we all will be together
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – Hugh Martin and Ralph Baine
If the fates allow
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
I don’t know anyone who isn’t glad to say goodbye to 2020. The thing is, while I hope 2021 is a better year, we’re still going to have plenty of struggles. Let’s find ways to insert moments of joy in our lives to help us “muddle through” those difficult times.
A note about future blog posts: Regular readers will remember that a few weeks ago I wrote about comforting entertainment for difficult times. In my post, I reflected on a recent time when I had been feeling anxious. At the time I wrote that, I was feeling better. However, my anxiety is escalating again as I deal with a loved one’s bad news and my own concerns over a peaceful transition of presidential power this month. Over the coming weeks it may be all I can do to do my paid work and basic chores. Honoring my commitments, including my commitment to publish a blog post every other week, is important to me, but I may need to let that go for a while. If I can keep to my schedule, I will do so, but if I need to take a mental health break, I might post less often than I have promised.