POST HOLIDAY BLUES
Ever since I was young I was acutely aware of the serious affliction that society deemed the ‘post-holiday’ blues. It’s a disease that affects 99% of the world’s population (I’m making up this statistic, but it sounds pretty accurate) and usually hits after the major holidays and milestone vacations. I remember my sister and I would get home from a vacation with our family and walk around the house with this malaise that would take us a good week to shake. We’d spend days reminiscing about how much we missed this or that, and how much it sucked waking up again at 7am and trudging off to school (little did we know, this was the least of life’s difficulties).
Christmas holiday (for those of you non-Christmas folks, you can insert whatever name you choose to describe it as) usually results in a large dose of the holiday blues disease. As I see it, the amount you look forward to something means that the malaise that will follow will be wholly prodigious. Not to mention Christmas is a complex affair that involves a lot of different luxuries and indulgences. You get your lie-ins (unless you’re a parent, and then forget it), your mass consumption of quality food and booze, your coming together of family members (which can also be a big fat headache, but it’s usually a positive experience for at least the first day…or first few hours, depending on your family), the giving of gifts, and your change of location from your usual place of habitation. In my case, I have two sisters that are conveniently placed in desirable locations for us to visit (Italy and France), and the King has a serious love for all things Italian especially the bread products.
In the case of my family, after the holidays are over, the thing I miss most is the communal congregation of the Anka tribe. Board games are busted out, movies are watched, food is cooked (and consumed in heavy quantities...thanks to my adorable partner who is of course an honorary Anka), and there is enough action going on with all the cousins to entertain the King ten times over (which means I can actually sit down for more than three minutes at a time, which is utter bliss). Not to mention, we all sit around and gossip and blather on about the (so called) important stuff in life (#33) that we all find worthy of discussion. We take this very seriously, so unless you can keep up, step aside.
The good thing about the December holiday season is that at least post-Christmas you have New Years to roll into to soften the blow of the post holiday blues. The problem is, once the second of January rolls around, you find yourself scrambling to pick out something in the near and precious future to look forward to, just to prevent you from going into a full, post-holiday carb meltdown.
I’m thinking that the cure for this very serious disease is introducing a holiday once a month. It wouldn’t have to be anything grand, just a little pick me up each month to look forward to and give one cause to congregate and imbibe. Then again, for most people this is called the average Friday night, so perhaps I’m reaching here. Anyway, for now, the King and I shall revel in every moment we are here in my sister’s house. At the moment, cookies are in the oven, the King's new hot wheel cars are all over the living room floor, and I’m passed out on the sofa like a melted Christmas pudding.
Life doesn’t get much better than this.