Nov

23

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS…

Filed Under Christmas, Family, Holiday Season, Tears of a Warrior 

by Janet J. Seahorn, Ph.D

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            It is time to begin a new Holiday Season. Dang, some stores started playing their carols, displaying Christmas ornaments, and advertising the grandness of spending oneself into shopping debt even before Halloween! I truly expected someone dressed as a reindeer or elf to ring my doorbell for trick or treat. 

            Now, don’t get me wrong I love Christmas. Really! It is my favorite holiday. Almost everything about it is a special time filled with amazing sights, fragrant smells of evergreen trees, bells, carols, and my list goes on and on. I even enjoy buying a few gifts for family and friends, and I make sure that Tony NEVER accompanies me on these shopping excursions. The Grinch is one of his Christmas heroes which, as you can imagine, puts a huge damper on my jolly shopping expeditions.

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            Therefore, as we begin this new 2011 Holiday Season, I thought I would put down a few ideas of how to survive the coming days.

  1. Begin your new Weight Watchers diet. Watch others eat less and lose while you wait and enjoy every morsel of goodies you can grab.  As military veterans, you had far too many C-Rations or MREs to endure food rations now.
  2. Don’t start off on the wrong foot at Thanksgiving, give away leftover turkey and celery to guests, but keep the pumpkin pie at all cost.
  3. If you have to ask for seconds, you are already sitting at the wrong table.
  4. If you are the wife of an anti-shopping Grinch, pray for them daily. We’re still a month until Christmas. You can even offer to share your Prozac if they become overly anxious during this joyous (hectic) time of year.
  5. If you are the Grinch, breath deep, meditate, and appreciate that the Holiday season only comes once a year, even if it seems to be coming earlier each year.
  6. And, last, if you are worried about excessive shopping and overspending, the banks don’t seem to care if anyone follows a budget anymore, so I’m sure they will extend your credit for say, the next thirty years.

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Seriously, I definitely understand the challenges of trying to negotiate the many pitfalls and stimulations of the Holidays and not just for veterans. For many, it is never an easy time of year, which is the reason why I decided to begin this season’s blog with a bit of humor. Some of us are going to need to store up as much hilarity as possible if we are to survive the absurdity ahead.

You see, I am really, really, really trying to stay on Santa’s “Nice” list.

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