Bah Humbug


December 26 is a downer for many people.

The decorations are still up, but do you sometimes feel whats the point?

Christmas is over.

The children have done their thing with the presents which probably are unbroken and mostly appreciated, but their allure as surprises in brightly wrapped packages is gone.  The guilt-free indulgences that happened in the last several weeks leading up to Christmas with chocolates and Chex mix is now giving way to nagging worries about love handles.

Call it the post-Christmas letdown, the result of spending a month immersed in the holiday, then having it end abruptly.  Although the holiday season doesn't end until New Year's Day, Christmas is the big holiday, the pinnacle of the season, the focus of planning and preparation.  The hours of decorating, cooking, and preparing for the big holiday gathering are shattered in the few short minutes of opening gifts, eating a great meal and if you are lucky . . . family or friends spending a few hours with you after the festivities.

Because Christmas is so important, feeling the letdown is common.  But getting over it can be tricky.  That reality comes crashing in the morning of Dec. 26.  There's something anticlimactic about a Christmas tree with no presents under it, about leftovers from a big holiday meal, about stacks of Christmas CDs that somehow don't sound as good as they did Dec. 24.

And for many people . . . there are the bills.

I always feel let down to some degree right after Christmas, whether or not I had a good holiday.  If I had a good Christmas, I want the feelings to go on, but if my Christmas sucked, I feel down because there's no hope left for recovering the holiday for that year and it's another long year before I get another chance.  I feel bad to see the colorful lights being taken down and neighborhoods being returned to their former drab darkness.  One of the nice things about Anchorage is the lights tend to be left on until March when the Iditarod Sled Dog race finishes and the last musher crosses safely under the burled archway in Nome.  It gives us a much needed mood lift during the long hours of darkness seeing the trees and buildings lit up in the various colors and themes.

Keeping busy after the holidays is another way to lose those holiday blues as well as taking some time out for yourself.  You have been busy doing for everyone else it is now time to take a mini-break to decompress and smile.

I hope everyone had a great day yesterday and that the time spent with family and friends will continue that feeling long into the new year.

Enjoy the rest of the holidays and laugh out loud so the smiles will set the mood.

Ice

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morrison Springs - Ponce de Leon, Florida

Image
Morrison Springs Ponce de Leon, Florida County road 181 Morrison Springs was one of our favorite dive spots on many of our Florida trips but it also had the most danger to it.  One of Northwest Florida’s best-kept secrets was known to more Georgia and Alabama folks than Floridians.  And they weren’t talking.  It had to do with the jewel of a Panhandle spring, a turquoise pool surrounded by stately cypress trees whose aerial roots stand taller than a man. Below the surface, clear, 68-degree water wells up from a spring cave source over 90 feet deep. Morrison Springs is just far enough off the beaten path in this sunny pine and cypress country to be special for any diver lucky enough to find and dive the site. The shallow pool reflects the overhead blue sky and if the water is clear and the bottom clean of silt, it resembles a giant sapphire.  Unlike some springs with a deep, black hole source, this one takes visitors gradually into its shallows from a golden-sand beach. Div
Read more

Are Showing Your Nipples Appropriate Work Attire?

Image
Let me first say that personally, I have no problem with it at all. This has been kind of a weird week here in the north land with the first of many winter snowfalls’s to come and the landscape once again beautifully covered in the white stuff. It looks like the kids will have to put their Halloween costume on over a snowsuit again this year as the cold snowy stuff is here again. That is not what I wanted to write about tonight but was necessary to set up what I did want to write about. “Frosty nipples” are quite common here during most of the year and when things cool down on the cusp of winter probably more so. Work attire with tight shirts or low cut blouses that ‘make a statement’ during colder weather could be taken several ways by co-workers or visitors to your place of business. While you may not always be taken seriously by others in the office and some may have trouble looking you in the face, I say it's a freedom of rights issue. If you want to show o
Read more

Biscuits and Whores

Image
Some of the best things about life I learned from Lonesome Dove. Great movie, excellent characters, and tells a story about how to live life. Augustus McCrae “It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living.   I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” I'm just tryin' to keep everything in balance, Woodrow. You do more work than you got to, so it's my obligation to do less. “Yesterday’s gone and we can’t get it back.” “I'm sure partial to the evening,' Augustus said. 'The evening and the morning.   If we just didn't have to have the rest of the dern day I'd be a lot happier.” Hat Creek Cattle Company Well we don't rent pigs and I figure it's better to say it right out front because a man that does like to rent pigs is . . . he's hard to stop. Biscuits “I never knew you to get excited about anything except biscuits maybe . . . and whores!”    Captain Woodrow Call to Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. Whores L
Read more