A Post-Holiday Mood Swing

I am basically an even-keeled person, one who is optimistic most of the time. I generally believe that life is progressing as it should and that things will turn out okay, despite occasional negative thoughts and minor setbacks, but lately I’ve been experiencing mood swings – the slow moving kind of mood swings. Picture a schoolyard swing blowing in the wind, whining, like schoolyard swings do.

The night before my son was to return to school after New Year’s I made a general apology to our ‘nuclear family’ for complaining my way through the holidays. The apology was quickly accepted – Abby even gave me a warm hug – but no one denied very convincingly that I had been a grouch. I’d had moments of good cheer and laughter, of course, but almost everything about the holidays this year had seemed like an uphill battle. One event done, no time to rest, now onto the next. And I found myself falling short over and over again, arriving late, forgetting this or that, failing to send out Christmas cards, and not making many of my usual phone calls. Was it passive-aggressive behavior or human behavior? Was I overwhelmed by outside forces beyond my control, or did I bring all of the stress and malaise upon myself? Surely it was the latter, but why?

Who was I trying to impress? Everyone, I guess (especially myself, the hardest to impress of all).

First there was decorating the house for Christmas: a dozen boxes came out of the woodwork (quite literally) into a home already brimming with people and their people things. Then there was list-making, then shopping, then ‘preparing’ in all other ways to keep up with the traditions we’ve accumulated over the years: a company front of nutcrackers (one for each year), a large village on top the piano, recitals, parties, a mother-daughter book club, an all-women’s book club, St. Niklaus Day, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert, gifts to be shipped, neighbor gifts, teacher gifts, office gifts, a family dinner Christmas Eve, Danish elf porridge, a nice breakfast Christmas morning, carefully selected presents under the tree, Christmas Day at Grandpa’s house toting presents to and fro, and a family party Christmas night. Throw in a few houseguests and some out-of-town relatives that I wanted to spend time with and you begin to sense my growing dissatisfaction. In my book it’s a good thing that ‘Christmas comes but once a year’ as much as we may think we’d like to have it semi-annually.

In between events I intercepted Christmas cards from the mailbox full of lovely letters and pictures of friends and college roommates and their families, all looking balanced and serene (probably taken in July), while I felt frantic, even robotic at times. Maybe it just wasn’t my year this year for Christmas. Maybe it was hormones or sun spots or politics.

I went into the season with a determined attitude and plenty of lists to see me through, but I knew going in that the holidays would be bittersweet at best. My oldest son will be leaving this spring on a two-year mission, and soon after he comes back, my second son will be going. This Christmas, in a practical sense, was to be quite possibly our last as one little family without in-laws or grandchildren or separation. And now it’s January and Christmas is gone.

I feel another mood swing coming on.

And now I’ve complained my way through an entire post on top of an entire Christmas season. I hope I’m not depressing anyone.

Maybe the whole premise of my desire to have ‘one last’ perfect Christmas was awry from the beginning. No one can bottle this year’s Christmas magic as a hedge against future Christmases that might not deliver. Maybe Christmas ought to come with a window sticker like a used car: as is. Take it or leave it. Celebrant beware.

Maybe in 2008 I will learn to take each Christmas as it comes. And maybe, now that it’s January 14th (!!!), I will just allow myself to quietly move on.