'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.

The Season of Gifting

When some of us sit down to make New Year’s resolutions, it’s fair to say that cutting back on spending will be a popular choice, if circumstances haven’t already forced that on us.

In our family, we make a pre-holiday resolution to have a “little Christmas,” meaning, we’re going to cut way back on gift-giving, though we never quite make it. True, we did spend less this year, but that was largely because stuff cost less, as the merchants were desperate. A big thanks to Amazon for the free shipping.

A lot of the spending has to do with annual gift-giving to other branches of the family. Some may say this is wasteful and the result of false obligation, but there is something to be said for tradition. At least, if you’re going to cut people off after umpteen years, you owe them an explanation. Sometimes you don’t even know that you have a family until you get their boxes of pears or whatever.

For me, the wrapping of the gifts is the hard part. This time I will hear from the green freaks who will complain about the waste generation and damage to the environment. Nevertheless, wrapping is important to us, so much so that I almost feel as if we’re grading each other. Paper selection, 9.1; color coordination, 8.7; Scotch tape use, 7.3; degree of difficulty, 5.9. My wife and I work as a production team. She hates working with paper and I hate ribbons and bows, so we divide up the work.

I must say there are few things more satisfying than finding exactly the right gift for someone, when you know they need it or crave it, even if it costs a little more. For the others, there is always the gift card, if you defeat the cop-out feeling.

But gifts don’t always have the expected effect. A friend’s little girl, who is just over a year old, was showered with gifts, including a teddy bear and such. But what most interested her was the wrapping, not the gifts themselves.

If your experience as a giver or receiver or both was less than perfect, well, there’s always next year’s holiday season. And birthdays are pretty good practice in between.

There, now I’ve said it.