For most people, the most magical time of the year is upon us. But for me, all I feel is dread heading into this holiday season. The only exciting thing about winter is the chestnut praline lattes at Starbucks. Other than that, I wish it could stay summer and fall for the entire year. It is hard when everyone around me is excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the fun things that go on during winter when I am secretly wishing we could go back to the beginning of summer with the warm weather and the promise of a few months of freedom. I used to love the holiday season, but for the past few years, I have found myself transitioning to the holiday season riddled with anxiety and dread. It is unclear to me why I feel this way, however, I do have a few theories about why I no longer enjoy the holiday season.
The holidays can be emotionally draining for a lot of people for a number of reasons. For me, November/December means all my long-term assignments are due and that finals are approaching. All of these deadlines mean that I usually do not have time to enjoy all the fun fall/winter activities that would make the season more fun. Over the past few years, I have not really participated in things like going to the pumpkin patch, having any Halloween plans, or decorating for Christmas because I have lost the excitement I once felt about celebrating these holidays. Having a lot of deadlines and responsibilities is great, and it is definitely a choice that I made, but it does make it difficult to have fun when I feel so drained.
I also have found that the weather plays a major role in my outlook on the day. I have even noticed this more recently because we have started to get some cloudy days intermixed with sunny days. Each time there is a cloudy day, I noticed that I have a “bad” mental health day. I have no idea if I truly have seasonal depression, but I know that that is a symptom that is sometimes experienced by people who do. Although we do not experience real winter weather here in Southern California, the gloomy weather we have from November to about mid-March is something I always dread. I have a hard time feeling happy when it is not sunny outside, which affects my feelings toward this time of year.
I tend to be heavily influenced by events of previous years when going into a new season of life. If I had a bad holiday season last year, which I kind of did, then I dread the start of a new one. Right now, I am remembering where I was at this time last year and I have that “here we go again” feeling because I did not enjoy my previous holidays.
The holidays are an incredibly enjoyable time for a lot of people, but there are also a lot of people who do not enjoy them for various reasons. I always get backlash for admitting that I do not particularly enjoy Christmas, or even Thanksgiving, but it is important to remember that it is actually more normal than we realize. Holidays, no matter which ones you celebrate, tend to bring up family problems, additional stress, or other issues for people and it is not talked about enough!