Thinking about Christmas in July

Today is July 4, 2008. My wife is watching some Christmas movie on a cable channel known for having women as its prime audience. The channel has some gimmick going about playing Christmas movies this weekend.

My kids are watching a Christmas DVD. They had to get into the act. They started to talk about what they wanted for Christmas.

Okay. I will bite. I actually did not want to even think of Christmas until the end of September, but our western economies have exploited something that is to be the birth of grace and salvation for all into a time of expected profit-taking and meeting inflated sales goals.

I think in the recessions, people get distressed about Christmas. If you are reading this in July, or whenever, I hope I have something that can work for you. Hopefully, if you are reading this, you will get some kind of comfort today from it and it won't be boring.

The holidays are a time of the year where there tends to be the most suicides. I think that the shortened days causing “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (a form of depression) have something to do with it, but many people feel empty, depressed, hopeless, and abandoned at Christmas.

Well, since people are expecting a recession this year, the stress of Christmas likely becomes an increasingly severe stressor. Christmas is supposed to take a lot of money. You are supposed to spend a lot of money on your kids and others.

You are supposed to show how much you care by what you give. On the other hand, others are supposed to show how much they care about you by giving you stuff that hopefully shows they were thoughtful.

There are many ways I can take this. But lets assume that you are worried about what you will do for Christmas in five months if you are facing a short supply of money and that it will be a struggle to get through Christmas. Another stressor is: what will they think of you if you do not give them presents.? The main question is: how do we cope?

The following is a recipe. I cannot guarantee that it is perfect for you. Nor can I guarantee that it will work perfectly for you. Also, just reading it will not do. This stuff below needs to become a lifestyle if not a philosophy that guides what you do!

First, you will tell yourself that you will do the best that you can . . . whatever that will be. I think when we are looking far ahead we tend to get all black and white in our thinking, and we get the magnifier effect—very small things look larger than they actually are.

What is far more helpful is to begin to trust in yourself and your ability to solve problems. When it gets here, you will be able to come up with solutions when the time comes.

You and I have no way of predicting the future. It is stressful if downright painful to let your imagination run wild about all the different, possible, negative options.

It is also far more helpful to ask yourself repeatedly: do you think you are blowing this out of proportion?

A question that you may be thinking is: does this guy really know how I do not think I can do anything? Can he see what a joke (or other profanity-up) I think I am?

Well, know I don't. I don't know you or your unique problems. It is just like you do not know me or my unique problems.

What I do know is that people with low self-esteem do not believe in their ability to solve problems in general. People with low self-esteem carry on the messages from childhood abuse and neglect into the present.

• Today it is a choice whether or not you are going to continue to believe those messages from childhood.
• I made a choice to stop idealizing my mother—just because she is mom does not make her right about everything. (dads, brothers, grandparents, sisters, uncles and aunts all fit in this spot.)
• I made a choice to stop believing that everyone was staring at me, and that strangers giving me dirty looks for no logical reason were being stupid or having trauma flashbacks from something in their way-back past.
• I made a choice to stop worrying whether people were mad at me?
• I made a choice to make others responsible for telling me if they were mad at me?
• I made a choice to decide whether they were mad about something valid?
• I made a choice to see that I was not the only one in the world who saw their own faults.
• I made a choice to decide that I was in charge of my feelings.
• I made a choice to write the book of my life with whatever ink is available at the time that I liked.
• I made a choice to start seeing that I was not the cause of everybody else's anger.
• I made a choice to pursue happiness.
• I made a choice to believe that there are some good people in this world I can become friends with who are also looking for good friends.

I do not regret any of those choices—they were good choices.
But the most applicable for this blog entry . . .

I made a choice that I can do things as well as the average human being, and therefore since other people solve and resolve problems as the come . . . I WILL TOO!

A third thought that can be helpful is that if it is indeed a recession this year, other people will be economizing too. Other people will be cutting back. Other people will be relying on their creativity to express their thoughtfulness.

A fourth thought is that this is your opportunity to start shopping now and practice thriftiness.

1. Make a list of the people on your list and start going to the overstock stores—you know those stores that have either seconds or things that the other stores could not sell on the first try.
2. Do not buy anything just yet—but look through the stores at things that the people on your list might like and match things up on your list.
3. Buy at most for one or two people per paycheck between now and before the time you are to be giving gifts. Et voila—you have done your shopping.
   

Again, these ideas may or may not work for you today. If they are not your cup of tea, I hope that they have stimulated your good creativity and faith in yourself to solve your own problems.

Yes, Christmas is coming again. I predict that the nightly news will run lots of stories about the winter of discontent and about the poor retail chains who were hoping that their cash registers would ring loudly at Christmas. I will visit this subject again between now and then.