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The Holiday Seasons - a Different View by Donna Wallace

I would like so much to share with everyone a different, and less pleasant side of Christmas and the Holiday Seasons.

The Holidays are so much fun, so exciting, so cheerful, so wonderfully magical for most of us. But, not everyone is blessed by the Holiday Seasons. Many people look forward to it with dread and sadness. I'd like the chance to share their story with everyone, so maybe we can learn a lesson from it and become more aware and help those of us who don't have "Merry" Christmas' or "Happy" Holidays.....

Just as with other holidays such as Mother's Day and Thanksgiving the celebrations only bring into clearer focus what is wrong or lacking in our own lives or relationships. We see the smiles, hear the laughter, and hide our tears.

Often we are unable, for various reasons, to spend the Holidays with our families or loved ones. Families are only human and are never perfect. We have our spats, our ups and downs, and our separations. The Holidays can be the loneliest and saddest time of the year. Many people suffer from depression, some of us are in mourning over lost loved ones. For many people all the Holiday parties and festivities only spotlight the fact that we have no parties, no festivities to enjoy.

I hope that if anyone knows someone who is having a rough time this year maybe they can take a little more time, a little more care spreading the message that the suffers are loved and cared about, and not alone...

Now.. here is the other side of this issue. Christmas can be Merry. The Holidays Happy, and everyone of us can be happy too. I've learned that a person is usually as happy as he makes his mind up to be. It's not a simple task but it is a valid choice.

I admit to having severe depression. I fought if for years before I began to learn about my illness and recover. Even today I find that the smallest thing can trigger me into a downward spiral and I have to fight to stay up.

Let me share, with you, a story about one of my recent Christmas'. It was the first Christmas that my husband and I would be all alone. My daughter and son would be spending the day somewhere else. Wow! Christmas is my children! What was I going to do to survive this day, I wondered? The minute I learned my children would not be sharing in our holidays I felt myself going down. I had fought so hard to stay positive that I could not let myself get depressed.

I finally accepted the fact that this would be a childless Christmas. I began to think about how I could make my Christmas special. What would make me happy?

Well, I gave this much thought and much prayer. I finally decided that if I couldn't have the Christmas of my dreams, maybe I could help someone else have a Merry Christmas.

I thought about the homeless. How lonely they would be, I thought. I decided to design my Christmas around helping others. The more I thought, the more excited I grew. I became alive with thoughts, plans, ideas. Soon I was smiling, singing, baking Christmas Cookies, making small presents, creating Xmas cards that would remind the homeless that even they were loved. My husband, to my surprise, was even caught up in the excitement. We bought crayons, books, pens, cards, etc.. Little gifts to give for the children and the adults. We tucked just a $1.00 bill in each card, because, naturally, we are rich in love, but poor in cash ;-)

Christmas morning the two of us celebrated our Christmas together and then excitedly packed the presents in the car and went out to spread our gifts.

Well, God does work in mysterious ways. We spent the better part of the day out in our car searching for homeless people to share our gifts with. Finally, after about two hours we saw a homeless man at a busy intersection. My husband, in his excitement, yelled at the man, ran out of the car and shoved two bags of gifts in the man's hands. I am certain the man was scared to death and wondering what "these weirdo's" were doing? We drove away, knowing how strange our actions must have seemed to him, but realizing how happy he would be when he discovered his "treasures." We laughed, and we felt very Merry! ;-)

Well, we drove around for another few hours and looked everyplace we knew the homeless gathered. We looked under bridges, in doorways, and everywhere in between. The joke seemed to be on us. We laughed as we realized that we were the only two people in the world without somewhere to go!! <grin> We drove around until dark, and we admired the Christmas lights, and a Christmas festival that we walked through and enjoyed. Then we went home, minus only two gifts, from when we first began.

Of course, we kept the presents in the car and in the following days we did give our gifts to many homeless and needy souls. A good deed is never left unblessed.

Well, to make a long story short, that Christmas turned out to be one of the happiest Christmas' ever. It certainly was the most memorable! ;-) We still think about the day and laugh.

I guess what I am trying to say is that almost all of us can have a Merry Christmas if we just decide to do so. If we have love in our hearts, and learn what we would feel happy doing, then we can turn our sad situation into a happier one....

If this Holiday Season is a hard one for someone you know, please take the time to make it a bit merrier for them. If you are having a less than Merry Christmas, learn what would make your day a happier one and then get busy being Merry! ;-)