'Tis the Season

My brother-in-law got upset the other day when he saw a Christmas-type commercial on TV during one of the breaks in his football game. A radio station in the city I used to live in has already started playing holiday music.

Meanwhile, the days are shorter, which I abhor. It’s depressing to see the sun setting at 5 p.m. This time of year, almost two-thirds of the day is in darkness or semi-darkness here in the Northern Hemisphere, and I get a little depressed.

Last year, a friend told me this is known as SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and that I would feel better if I only took Vitamin D pills. Another friend, in Seattle, is acquiring some kind of ultraviolet lamp. Well, OK then, I understand, that’s Seattle, after all. What am I complaining about – it hasn’t even rained here yet. Meanwhile, the East dipped below freezing this week, but we in my part of the West have yet to see the other side of 40 degrees F.

Something in me, however,  resists the notion that this annual depression is just some kind of chemical or physical imbalance which can be righted by pills or artificial means. I actually think moods are useful. Some of our best literature and music has been written by those in certain moods, often brought on by natural environmental changes. I actually write pretty good stuff when I get depressed (not necessarily this, of course!).

I especially resist being told how I am supposed to feel over the holidays. Suppose I’m not feeling thankful at Thanksgiving or filled with cheer and brotherhood at Christmas? Suppose it doesn’t make me happy to learn from your holiday letter that your son has been named a Rhodes Scholar? What if some years I want others to join me in a chorus of “Bah, humbug”? But I digress.

In the town of Inuvik in Arctic Canada, they have a ceremony the first week in January to mark the return of the sun, which disappears for 30 days in the dead of winter at that latitude. The sun just begins to reappear on the horizon on Jan. 6, and that’s a good reason to party.

One of my favorite quirky horror movies is called “30 Days of Night,” in which a pack of Eastern European vampires visits Point Barrow, Alaska during its month of darkness. That’s when vampires can go on a real bender – no sun.

The only cure that would work for me, I guess, is an expensive one: getting a winter home in the Southern Hemisphere. Perth or Cape Town or Buenos Aires, here I come!

But they still do the same holidays in those places, too, where it’s hot. Must be tough on the reindeer.