Blue christmas?

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Annunciata:
I’m sorry for the losses in your life this past year…always hard at Christmas when everyone else is so joyful…but we have our memories… and above all we must be mindful that we are celebrating the Greatest Gift to the world…Our Lord Jesus Christ!
All of you who are down, lift up your hearts and let us think of the promises of Christ and ask Our Lady’s intercession…imagine what her thoughts might have been? Mothers always take care of their children and make them feel better!
Sooo…I wish you and all a very joyful and blessed Christmas!
Annunciata:)
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Just one more thing to add:::A lady backed into my wifes car yesterday. But it’s fixable, and could have been a lot worse. Thank you for the good thoughts, and have a Happy and Holy Christmas. Dave in snowy nw Ohio
 
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davy39:
Just one more thing to add:::A lady backed into my wifes car yesterday. But it’s fixable, and could have been a lot worse. Thank you for the good thoughts, and have a Happy and Holy Christmas. Dave in snowy nw Ohio
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Davy, I actually dented my own car a few weeks ago with a post in a city garage. I took it as a reminder to slow down. I said a prayer of thanks that it wasn’t a live person. I think no matter what, we have to be grateful for life’s blessings, and there are many of them. I applaud your good sense to realize that the car is fixable. When the snow hits, people drive crazy. It is a good time of year to stay home more! Merry Christmas.
 
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Sirach14:
Today is Christmas, and I am bores, depressed, and angry.
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Well Sirach,
The depression makes you angry and bored…so what is causing you to be down? I’ve been weeping on and off since yesterday…remembering past Christmases w/ those who are gone now…but, delighting in my new grandson who is just starting to really smile and coo…he was like a little angel at the Vigil last night…I carried him so proudly up to Communion w/ me…What a blessing! I’m a little bored today because now all the excitement w/ everyone around is over and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. so take heart, you are not alone. I’ll keep you in my prayers…
Annunciata:)
 
Here we go again…I’m already feeling Blue again…anyone else? I have all my shopping done, tree up … snow on the ground…😦
 
This is my first year of getting the “blues”. I have no idea why I feel this way this year.
 
Yes, I get blue every year too. I used to always break up with boyfriends just before Christmas (I think it was because I didn’t want them to meet my family. ;)). These days, it’s the fact that my mom decides to go a bit psychotic at the holidays and always manages to get everyone pretty much mad at her. I am trying to get into the “Christmas spirit” but am constantly reminded how much Christ has been taken out of Christmas (just read the AFA association newsletters!). What’s been helping this year is watching my little ones (2 and 3 1/2) getting into the holidays, enjoying the decorations, etc. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think I’d even put up many decorations at all. Most of the time I just wish I could pass by Christmas and get right to the New Year. I Love Lent and Easter… those are my favorite holidays! I just have to get through Christmas to get there…😉

It’s not that I have a bad life, as I think many people online here also have good lives. I think that what’s hard is that I put pressure on myself to feel some holiday cheer, and when that isn’t happening, it gets me down. Maybe the thing is not trying to feel anything in particular. Just enjoying the people I’m with at the time, and looking forward to each event as it comes. It’s good to know that so many other people get down at the Holidays. I think a lot of us are more often reminded at this time of year than any other of the people we miss, the days gone by, and yes… the Seasonal Affective Disorder doesn’t help much!! The 21st of December is the shortest day of the year, after all.

Okay, enough rambling! I’m just glad that I’m not alone. I tell people I don’t care for Christmas and they look at me like I’ve got three heads! I’m not a Scrooge, but for heaven’s sake, stop acting like you love this time of year so much! Maybe one day I’ll move to Florida, leave Michigan, and all that sunny warmth will take away the blah’s!! 🙂

God bless!
-Amy
 
From Advent & Christmas with The Saints compiled by Anthony Chiffolo

Page 20

God our refuge and our strength,
who from of old has helped us in our distress.
Therefore we fear nothing–
even if the earth should open up in front of us
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea,
even if the earth’s waters rage and foam
and the mountains tumble with its heaving…(Psalm 46)

During painful times, when you feel a terrible void, think how God is enlarging the capacity of your soul so that it can receive him–making it, as it were, infinite as he is infinite. Look upon each pain as a love token coming to you directly from God in order to unite you to him.
Blessed Elizbeth of theh Trinity (1800-1906)

O God of Fullness, Advent and Christmas events sometimes conjure painful memories of times past when these holidays were not so pleasnat, and the dread of revistiting them paralyzes me. Heal my old hurts, I pray, easing my pain with your balm, replacing my hatreds with your love, and filling my emptiness with your infinite fullness, that I might move forward in joy to greet your coming. Amen.
 
Oh I love Christmas so much…especially all the neat and practical gifts we’ve received over the years from our thoughful relatives…like the yapping robotic dog or the talking parrot or the singing trout. Mingling with my husband’s relatives is always such a joy, especially the alcoholic ones. Don’t you just enjoy a good laugh when someone puts a lampshade on their heads and starts dancing on the table!

And I just love hosting my Christmas Eve party, I can’t wait till someone spills a drink over my new sofa or drops a dipped potatoe chip on the cleaned carpeting. I just love it when someone tells me there’s a mushroom in the salad and mushrooms make them vomit or they can’t eat the cake because of the mixture of different fruits in the cake filling causes them a rare bioflavenoid allergy. Naturally I will have the honors of washing all the dishes afterwards (I use my good china for this occasion) and pots and pans (we don’t have a dishwasher) while the guests continue with the spilling of coffee and other beverages in the living room.

And the day after Christmas is almost as much fun! Thats when I gather up all the great presents and haul them off to the Exchange section of the stores and wait in the long lines with other equally happy souls. 😦
 
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misericordie:
Yes, this Thanksgiving day at my home(I live with my parents) my two sisters, their husbands and their kids, and my brother and his jids came over, but it gets more dysfuncional each year: they all talk at the same time, are loud, and after 4 or 5 drinks, by brother in law (otherwise a very responsible hard worker) begins to in a quiet and decent way to talk nonsense. The only ones who have much faith are my mom, me, and ONE sister and her husband, all others:nope: . Drinks (I hate that, but it’s not my home, if it was NO WAY!!) are always provided for by my father.
NEXT YEAR: I am going elsewhere, to a friend’s home: she is very spiritual and there is PEACE.
THISD Dec. 25, I am out too!!!
I wish I had my own wife, family and peace in MY OWN Apartment/home. But, well I am 33 years old and have not yet found neither. I know, I should be on my own, I am TRYING to do that, NOW.
I often get soooooooooooooo angry and depressed that I have not even found a decent God loving girlfriend. I cannot (many other people either) understand WHY (its like I am cursed) after all I am God loving, a good catholic, I graduate of a Prestigious University, a law abiding guy, and well, I have been told I am “good looking.” Forgive me all for ranting, I just feel so frustrated.
Any advice???
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I know exactly what you are feeling…I felt that way for years. ‘Why didn’t you ever marry again?’ I would be asked (my husband died 18 years ago). For many years I would give the standard answer, “Oh, I haven’t found anyone yet”. Now I give the real answer - “I don’t know…apparently, God has something else in mind. Darned if I know what it is”.

I do have some advice…I hope you don’t hate it…

Get out of yourself on Christmas day…for at least part of the time donate your time to somewhere or someone else AWAY from the goofy family…hook up with your Parish and spend it with at the homeless shelter or the local VA hospital or the old folks home…and consecrate yourself to Our Lady…then start your novena to the Little Flower and make a specific request…that she help you find your Catholic wife…she is pretty powerful…and who knows? Maybe the woman you need to meet has decided to dedicate herself to Our Lady and help out those homeless drunks down at the shelter on Christmas Day.
 
Dear Annunciata,

Please be assured that you have my prayers for Mary to intercede on your behalf, for you’ve brought back this thread on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

I feel like I’m in Advent with the Souls in Purgatory awaiting Christmas this year. I have an eye problem that I’d been hoping the doctor would have performed minor surgery on by now, but he’s made me wait until December 21st. Meanwhile, part of the suggested treatment while I’m waiting is hot compresses, as hot as I can stand it. At my last appointment, I had offered up for the Poor Souls the pain and discomfort that I thought I’d feel for only a half hour or so that day… but instead what I’ve been asked to offer up is waiting and a “purgative” heat treatment in an effort to clear up an infection before the doctor will proceed!

I lost a grandmother on December 23rd … she died a half hour before I reached the nursing home, driving from Cleveland, Ohio to Buffalo, NY through a fierce snowstorm. God comforted me while I was in New York with family, but on my return home to Ohio, I did not really have a support network. Then one night I dreamed Grama was standing in a sunny meadow while I was on the border in the shade. She was smiling and just like when I was little, she asked whether I could come and stay with her? In the dream, I found myself answering very calmly, “No Grama, I can’t. I have things to do.” A relative had offered up plenary indulgence prayers for the repose of her soul during the Jubilee Year 2000, so she may well have been in heaven at the time of the dream. Anyways, after that dream I no longer needed a support network … that dream brought me peace.

~~ the phoenix
 
My holiday blues have certainly made a comeback. Lost both parents in 2001, 4 months apart. Administering the probate was a nightmare with a brother, who for no reason whatsoever, thought I was “stealing” from the estate and mis-managing everything! (Folks, this is what I do for a living, I don’t think I’d jepoarrdize my career in this manner). Things are still not “right” between this brother and myself.

Last year was the first time since they passed away that I felt like I wasn’t just going through the motions, and I enjoyed the decorating and baking almost like I used to, despite some new truths I found out about my husband, of 11 years, that totally paralyzed and devistated me.

This year, its just sort of mediocre. Hubby moved out in September, but we are maintaining a good relationship and are actually getting along better than in a long time. (Sorry, no hope for reconcilliation there, but that’s not for this thread).

Perhaps this year the blues returned because there are no lights on the house like normal, and having my daughter in RCIC, and me in RCIA, leaves little time to complete the decorating. This was a decision I made since I’m in the house, and with electricity bills going up, I didn’t think I wanted to bare the brunt of that cost! 😛

I try to keep up a good front for the kids, and at times I feel pretty good, but it just isn’t the same.

Merry Christmas to you all!
 
I do tend to get a little “down” around the holidays. I have found over the last few years that if we cut out some of the activities and functions, and take time to enjoy the season vs. RUSH, RUSH, RUSH–then, it’s much better. Also, I take time to keep our schedule as “normal” as possible. Cut down on all the different types of food. I have the family eat a decent meal BEFORE going to functions, that way we’re not starving and the tendency to pick at different foods is decreased. I spend time getting some “me” time–with walks, a good book. I am sort of a homebody, and if I give myself a chance to be home and continue some of the things I enjoy, I am more refreshed, and less “blue”.

Hope my rambling helped!!
 
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DaveBj:
My sympathies to all who are down during the holidays, especially to those who are grieving losses.

Christmas this year is going to be really screwy for us, since it’s on a Saturday, right in the middle of my work week. In all the confusion of coming off a 13-hour night, trying to decide which Mass I need to attend, and trying to get enough sleep to make it through another 10-hour night, there’s not going to be any time for Christmas, as most people understand the meaning of the word. We probably won’t even be doing a Christmas dinner.

On the good side, SU hasn’t yet mentioned getting the Christmas tree and decorations out yet. That’s a Good Thing, because I just don’t feel like decorating this year. I love looking at other people’s decorations, but I hate decorating our own place.

DaveBj
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I resurrected my last-year’s post in this thread because this year is basically more-of-same, except that Christmas is Sunday this year, and I have to fit Mass into sleeping off my Sat-nite-Sun-morning shift. Mass at the parish is at 1000, which would mean coming home, sleeping for three hours, going to Mass, and then trying to get back to sleep again. However, out at the Shrine they have an 0700 Mass, one hour after I get off work, so I think I’m going there instead.

However, in terms of the usual Christmas activities (opening gifts, a nice dinner)–forget it. Ain’t gonna happen 😦

SU is decorating, which means the dining room table is three layers of unplaced ornaments.

DaveBj
 
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Annunciata:
Here we go again…I’m already feeling Blue again…anyone else? I have all my shopping done, tree up … snow on the ground…
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Tree up…not decorated yet…I put a couple of ornaments on and then I started looking through the ornaments from 40 years ago and slipped right back into the “blues” …😦 I know I need to get a grip! I know this is an opportunity to gain grace in offering up this depression…Maybe I should look at it as an opportunity instead!:bounce: I just got that flash that went from my head to my heart!❤️ Thank you for the grace dear Lord…:bowdown:
 
Todat at mass, father was telling a story about a long time ago when he & a college buddy were talking about how they had been getting less & less excited about Christmas each year. They got to talking & realized that it was because they had unrealistic expectations of what Christmas should feel like. They realized they had child-like expectations & decided they would both fast on the 23rd of December that year. They each went their own way for the holidays & fasted and prayed. They prayed for a new sense of what Christmas is about & they were both surprised & excited to tell each other about their experiences when they got back to school.
I just really enjoyed his homily because I have been feeling the “blues” this year really bad. I even cried last night for no reason. I have never noticed this feeling before & I really got a lot out of what he was saying.
Maybe his story will cheer someone else up, too. I felt so much better today after mass.
 
I get “Blue” every winter and it does get worse around Christmas because everyone is so happy and I’m SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) I don’t really have anything to be sad about because I have so many, many blessing .
I’m going to try the fasting thing that Momof 3Boys talks about in her post. Thanks for sharing that!🙂
 
I have always loved Christmas but this year as it’s getting closer I am feeling kind of bummed which is very unlike me.

It started of with missing my hubby’s work party this year because I was too sick to go. They have it at this fantastic restaurant (that we certainly can’t afford to dine at) and the food is spectacular.

Then my parent’s made a last minute decision to to visit relatives in NY for Christmas. We couldn’t go because a) hubby really can’t afford to take time off and b) my health hasn’t been great lately and I don’t want to be a party pooper. I’m very set in my ways when it comes to Christmas and we’ve always spent Christmas eve with my parents. So it’s going to be kind of weird but I’m glad my mom is going to visit her family she always has a wonderful time.

We see my husband’s parents on Christmas day, and this year things are particularlily strained with between my FIL and us. I’m feeling nervous because I’m not sure what to expect.

And because of my health I haven’t worked in 2 months and all overtime got cut at my hubby’s job so money is super tight.

The tree went up last weekend but we never got around to putting up our outdoor decoartions. It’s too cold right now to feel very motivated to do it either.

So I guess it’s just a bunch of things, mainly related to my health problems in one way or another. I know it could be worse but it’s just been kind of blah this year.
 
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Honoria20:
I’m going to try the fasting thing that Momof 3Boys talks about in her post. Thanks for sharing that!🙂

I’m going to try the fasting this year, too. We’ll have to compare stories. 🙂
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I think maybe making christmas a day of prayer and reflection could be a good idea. it would get rid of all the lofty expectations, and people going broke over preparations for it. I think the secular aspects of the holiday soured it for many. myself Im not necesarly blue, but Im tired of the streets where I live having the traffic tripled, the stores being clogged so one cant do their normal shopping. oh well
 
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