Blue Christmas

Last Sunday our pastor spoke about the depression that some people feel at Christmas. I am glad he brought it up. I feel not only depressed during the holidays but guilty as well; guilty about being depressed. It was comforting to know that I am not alone.

My wife will be taking the kids to Tennessee to visit with her parents again this year. I will stay home, as usual. I will miss them but somehow it is better that they gather together to celebrate and leave me here to tough out these few weeks on my own. I won't isolate. I will make the rounds of friends and spend time at the 12-Step club house.

I remember enjoying this season as a boy, but the experience has been an unpleasant one for all of my adult life. I don't know why. I am bothered by the atificial feel of the cheer I encounter in public. Stores play tired old tapes of Christmas music. Shoppers bump into each other at the mall and stand impatiently in lines waiting to hand their credit cards to the clerks. Lamp poles are draped in decorations that seem more generic every year.

See what I mean? With this attitude it is better that I not be with the family, tucked in the corner like an emotional black hole, sucking the good holiday spirit right out of the room.

I'm not writing this to invite sympathy. I'm just working out my feelings by acknowledging them in writing.

I think I will not put up a tree this year. I just want to arrange the manger scene on the mantle. That will help me to focus on the real message of Christmas. And I will go to church on Christmas Eve to spend the evening in quiet celebration and contemplation.

And, I will sincerely wish those around me a very Merry Christmas.