Reading Tomorrow and Holiday (fridge-induced) Breakdowns with Suggestions for Holiday SAD

So, I’m reading for the first time ever tomorrow at the Antioch Seattle reading series, and I’m excited, as I haven’t done a college reading for a little while, and it’s being hosted by friend and superhero poet Evan J. Peterson. So it should be fun! 7 PM Tuesday night at Antioch Seattle Cafe.

My holiday cheer budget—and regular budget—were severely curtailed by a massive refrigerator breakdown—as in, we came home with a big thing of groceries to find our fridge totally out of commission. No repairmen were answering the phone (it was a Friday) and I called every local retailer of refrigerators only to find none of them could deliver until after the 19th! As someone with food allergies who can’t really eat out, this was pretty distressing. My husband finally found a fridge at Sears. At first, he volunteered to pick it up and drop ours off himself, but I talked him out of that foolishness, and so we got it delivered this afternoon, sitting, still warm (it takes 12 hours to cool down!) in our kitchen. It was $1,000 we did not want to spend around the holidays, certainly, but I’m thankful to have a working fridge again. I never thought I’d be so excited about a delivery from Sears!

So, holiday cheer is one of those things I wrestle with, because (or even though?) I unabashedly LOVE the Christmas season. I love decorating the tree, listening to Christmas carols, buying presents. I even do a tiny bit of Hanukkah celebrating (I guess I grew up with a lot of Jewish friends in Cincinnati, and this tradition sort of stuck! On that aside, one of the best gluten-free holiday recipes we’ve tried recently include tiny latke mini-muffins (latke ingredients put in a mini-muffin pan sprayed with your oil of choice and baked at 400 degrees for 30 minutes – we included carrot, beet and fennel with our potato shreds and they turned out fantastic! Dab a bit of sour cream on top, and they’re addictively amazing!) Okay, back to the point—as much as I love the holidays, I do tend to struggle a bit with holiday reverse-cheer—that is, sadness, or moodiness, or whatever. I believe this may even be a common thing, because it’s cold and dark, the days are shorter, we have all these pictures of perfect families in perfect homes eating perfect food on television, in all those cheeesy Christmas movies, and it’s hard – impossible – to live up to all the expectations. My family used to struggle with money every holiday (my parents both have December birthdays, too!)  so we tended to hear a lot of money arguing during the season and then receive a lot of our Christmas presents on January 1. (January 1 presents are a nice part of my family’s traditions that Glenn and I try to keep up—plus you get to take advantage of after-Christmas sales!)  This year our budget was broken by the fridge, but we’ll still do our best to celebrate with family and friends.

Anyway, here are my main coping mechanisms for holiday SAD:

1. Get outdoors. Here yes, we had some snow and ice, and now we have the rain back, so it’s not as inviting as it is in August, but I still feel better just after standing outside for a little bit, especially around trees!

2. Schedule fun events with other people, and then make them a priority. I wasn’t feeling great this weekend; I always seem to have a cold or sore throat in the winter, and had a major headache as well as being a bit upset about having to throw out food and improvise every meal. I really just wanted to lie in bed by myself, but I’m so happy I made it to at least some of the many holiday parties I was supposed to go to this weekend. For others, this may just be making a date with their loved one for a Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon movie watch. Whatever makes you happy, pencil it in.
(Picture here with Jessica and Jacqui of the VALA Art Center, who threw a mean party this weekend. Friends are beneficial to holiday SAD!)

3. Yule Log on the television? White Christmas, Bridget Jones and The Holiday constantly on repeat, or a marathon of Barefoot Contessa holiday cooking shows? A new book you’ve been dying to read? Need to see the Zoo lights? Whatever it is that you like about the holidays, take a day off from everything and do a little relaxing, guilt-free indulging in your favorite thing.

4. This may be a Northwest thing, but light boxes and Vitamin D3 gummy vitamins are a necessity in December. Full-spectrum light bulbs help, too. Feed your chocolate cravings – chocolate elevates mood, so it’s basically health food. Oh, and feed your backyard birds! We don’t have much of a backyard, but we have three hummingbird feeders and they are BUSY all winter. Hug your pet of choice, even if it’s an iguana. Listen to music that only you like. (I had a continuous loop of Sarah McLachan’s “River,” Aimee Mann’s “Calling on Mary,” The Flobots “Handlebars” and “The Hanging Tree” song from the new Mockingjay movie this weekend, myself.) So, basically: do anything you can do to stave off the winter blues.  Do the thing that feeds your spirit.