Christmas Holiday Season withdrawl.

[Mrs-M]

I know for many the holiday season can be (and is) stressful. The planning, the preparation, the spending, the company, the visiting, it does take it's tole by the end, but are you like me and sort of miss it when it's all over?

I find I go through and enter an almost withdrawal when I take the tree down and pack everything up for another season. It's a bitter sweet time for me. On one hand it's a relief to see it all over with for another year, while on the other hand it's difficult to close the chapter off and say goodbye to the spirit of Christmas for the season.

I miss the sounds of Christmas Carols and songs that fill our home weeks prior to, and leading up to Christmas Day itself, just as I miss the sights of all the decorations and colourful lights and lit trees around town. It's a magical time of closeness and love.

[Gina]

It is a special time for many people. Sorry you are going through withdrawal. I enjoy the holidays but generally am relieved went it's all over.

In the past however I used to really look forward to certain events and focus all my attention on that... (a party I was giving, a vacation, Christmas when younger, etc)... and when that was over, I'd feel very, very let down and unfocused. At the time, my solution was to make sure I had something else (of smaller significance) planned for right afterwards. It worked. It refocused me.

In other words, look forward, not back. What's next on your life list? Is there anything you've been wanting to do? Work on an album? Try a special dish? Learn to play the piano? Plan the spring garden ???

Now's the time. :)

[iris lily]

No not me. I'm glad that the season of excess and repetitive ritual is over. I had to work this year to find a few new things to do to lift me out of my Holiday boredom funk. While some people are reassured by "traditions" in which the same thing happens year after year, I freak out with boredom. Then my mother died in the middle of it all--now that was novel. Thanks mom.

The main reason I don't put up holiday decorations is that I hate taking them down. Just hate it. While no one relaly likes it, I loathe it!

January is my time to reorganize, clean up, and do nothing in the garden. By the end of Feb usually some warm weather is breaking thorugh and I've got to get out in it. By March it is full bore garden season.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I'm glad that the season of excess and repetitive ritual is over.

+ 1 (yea the repetitiveness is crazy)

I got pretty depressed over the holidays. I feel much better now that they are over.

[sweetana3]

We skipped the whole thing this year by being out of the country until the middle of December. It was lovely. I think it is the constant stimulation and the fake good will that gets to me. I do have my own copy of Charlie Brown Christmas so I can play that right at Christmas.

We visited friends (one big family)on Christmas and the excess stuff and food was pretty overwhelming. Our presents were lost in the mess.

[Crystal]

Well, as anyone who knows me knows, this year I just wasn't into it. Sort of suffered through the whole season and was delighted when it was finally over. What a relief.

[Bootsie]

I'm not gung-ho about the Christmas holidays, but even so, I feel a bit sad when it's all over. I think that's totally normal after big events, Mrs. M.

One solution is to plan something else to look forward to - such as making Valentines or working on some other winter project.

After I take down the holiday decorations, I like to go really sparse and declutter like crazy. I like January to be "bare" and I look forward to that ritual.

[simplelife2]

I live just outside of Chicago and always have the hardest time making it through January regardless. The holidays are a good distraction from the cold and snow. But then it just bears down. If it's above 30 degrees, I just bundle up and try to get out. But anything colder than that, it really irritates my asthma. And this year has been colder than normal, so I'm already feeling trapped.

One year I was luck enough to go on a business trip to San Diego in January. It was amazing how that short reprieve made that winter fly by. I wish I could afford to do that on my own, but I'm stuck here. I ordered a bunch of garden catalogs that are just starting to arrive to distract me.

[Polliwog]

I was looking forward to it being over in November, although I do love Thanksgiving. Since I have passed the torch to my daughters-in-law, I didn't even put up decorations or a tree. That made the whole season a lot easier but still too busy and overloaded. I get so warn out with it all. But I love January and the plans for the new year. Spring is on its way. Yeah!

Polliwog

[Mrs-M]

Boy, so much positive here, and I'm really feeding off of it. It really helps. Thanks everybody. I was thinking about this today and I do think part of the withdrawal I suffer from stems from how fast the years seem to pass the older I get. Seems I just pack things up in anticipation of the new year and before long, it's fall again, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas. It's like- "where does time go"...

Sorry to hear about your mom Iris.

[Gregg]

Count me as a lover of the holidays (holidaze?)! We took down all the decorations and the tree the other day. The house is so festive with them, now it just looks a little naked. The fact that spring is at least a couple months off doesn't help much, either. I leave the white lights is the trees in front and around the deck railing in back up all year. DW thinks its because I'm lazy. Well, I am, but that's not why I do it. The way they twinkle at night makes me happy and it's cheaper than Xanax.

[sylvia]

Dear Mrs. M-
I feel your pain. At Christmas I get those nostalgic memories of my early childhood. I also know that we're making new memories with my family. This one was extremely stressful, the shopping and working and cleaning was too much.But after it was over I really embraced this January for a fresh start month. This really set the tone for 2011.I am leaning towards letting go things I don't need or want anymore with the hope that I will make next Christmas more meaningful and simpler as a result .I have to rethink the meanings to all these holidays not a times of consumerism but as a nonconsumer.Even after living more simply for 5 years it is a gradual deepinig in meaning and making it happen in your own way.

[Mrs-M]

Hi Gregg and Sylvia. I find solace in your words.