Is It The Tinsel?

Is It The Tinsel?

Is it the tinsel?

Is it the candy canes?

Is it the whole Santa Claus thing, with the elves, the sled, and the flying reindeer, one with an unrelenting, blinking red nose?

For many people, Christmas is not a time of Joyeux Noël. Instead, the Christmas season sends them reeling into world of regret and unhappiness. While young and old are bubbling with excitement and expectation, some folks live in dread and despair until the Christmas season is done and gone.

Is it the glitzy wrapping paper?

Is it the absurdly decorated Christmas tree, with its twinkling lights, and its little manger effect at its base?

Is it the Christmas cake, the Christmas cookies, the Christmas ham?

I suspect that this phenomenon, known as the Christmas "blues," is not as uncommon as many of us think. Too many people live on the outside of things these days. Too many people feel excluded, as if they are looking in some candy store window, but for whatever reason, can't go inside and enjoy the sweetness of the candy store life.

As the years wear on, we tend to lose things. We lose our change purse, we lose our glasses, we lose our way in the mall, and we lose people. Friends, who were once close, fade into the past. Family members pass on into the great beyond. Husbands or wives decide to hijack the joint savings account and head for parts unknown. Children discover lives of their own. It all happens slowly, but it seems to happen inevitably. Before we know it, we wake up to discover a new feeling grinding up the essence of our being. We wake up to the recognition that we are alone.

Is it the eggnog?

Is it those cranberry-nut-poinsettia-sprig-of-pine wreaths on every door you pass?

Is it the snowman dressed in a scarf and an old top hat in the Lombardi's front yard?

Living alone and being alone are not the same thing. At some point in life, most of us will find ourselves living alone, but living alone is easy, and some would even say preferable to living with someone else. Being alone is deadly. Being alone is that sense of being of little or no importance to anyone in life, not even to yourself. It is that state of drifting aimlessly through time towards the door at the end of the hall, you know, the one with the bright light seeping through the keyhole.

Instead of seeing time as something to fill with interesting and passionate experiences, some people see it only as an empty space between waking and sleeping, a space they can't seem to fill with anything other than moronic television shows, food sedation, R_x drugs, alcohol, and who knows what. This is the life of self-loathing, the life of stasis, in which nothing ever changes because change risks everything, and let's be honest, who really wants another anxiety attack?

Is it the Christmas stockings hung with great care?

Is it the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker Suite?

Is it having to watch It's A Wonderful Life for the 37^th time?

Being alone is never more apparent than it is at Christmas time. Every which way you turn, people are making plans for one get-together or another. Jude is having lunch with Darcy. Brandon is taking the entire family ice skating. The Walkers are coming over for drinks and favours. Allan and June have Missy's school Christmas pageant next Tuesday. Muriel is leaving for Florida to visit her son-the-doctor. Yes, it seems everyone's social calendar suddenly explodes with exciting events.

Except ... such is not the case for everyone. Some people look down at their dance card, and find it's empty. Who's to blame? Who's to blame?

Is it the Christmas carols?

Is it the Salvation Army kettle attended by someone dinging a little bell?

Is it the gingerbread house decorated with M&M's stuck permanently in that ridiculously impervious icing?

Well, no one is to blame. Not your friends, not your family, not your children, not even yourself. If you feel left out at Christmas time, well here's a tip for you. You're not just left out during the holiday season, you're more than likely left out through the entire year. Don't blame your plight on Christmas.

After all, some folks live in the village, and some folks live out-of-town. Some folks have busy lives, and some folks have no lives. If you are one of the latter, you have either chosen that path or you have somehow simply let yourself inadvertently drop out of the maddening crowd. So make a choice. Accept your loneliness, or begin to build bridges back to the rest of humanity.

Is it the Christmas cards?

Is it the jolly jingles?

Is it the star of wonder?

If you choose to find your way back into a community of like-minded individuals, here's yet another tip. Forget the ones who have let you go once before. Sister or brother, son or daughter, if they have previously displayed a tendency not to want you around, it's a safe bet that, no matter how hard you try, they still won't want you around. Let them go their own way, and you go yours.

Yes, I know, blood is blood, family is family, but human nature is also human nature. And human nature is such that what has been forsaken cannot always be undone. No, you're best to find new friends and new relationships and let them become your new family. Replace the whole blood obsession with a good bottle of wine and some friendly camaraderie. For that matter, get stinking drunk, tell dirty jokes, and pass out on some stranger's couch with or without your underwear intact.

In other words, smash all your inhibitions and self-doubts into powdery snowflakes and learn to enjoy life. You know, people don't like people who don't like themselves. So, refresh/reload the page, format the hard drive and get rid of all that worthless spam that people have been leaving on the doorstep of your life for all these years. It's never too late to start over, until it's too late. And then it's too late, and just imagine how pissy you will feel then.

Is it the scented candles?

Is it the mistletoe?

Is it that no-room-at-the inn birth of Jesus scenario?

Of course, some people will choose not to change their lives. And so, Christmas will once again be the bane of their existence. They'll feel sorry for themselves, and wrap themselves up in the dark and dreary bows of depression. For those people, I also have something hopeful to offer. There's an old saying that "Misery loves company." If that is true, well, you might get lucky. Someone might show up.