Happy Holidays? Why are so many not?

Holidays are classic times for songs about joy and happiness.  Yet, many people feel the opposite.

I have struggled with feeling discouraged and bummed out at times.  It motivated  me to make a serious study to the causes of such feelings  - including the wide-spread depression  especially this time of year!

I think one reason is the "expectations" we associate with Christmas.
The lower my expectations, the happier my holidays...  Best advice I ever heard was to lower your expectations. Now lower them again. Now lower them real low...and I've had happier holidays doing that.

  Reason is, when real-life happens at the holidays, such as food, gifts, decorations, budgets etc not being quite so Norman Rockwell perfect I'm not disappointed.    I expected things to be very imperfect.
As a result, the few things that did go well, were happy surprises to me and causes for feelings of gratitude and contentment.  Sure beats those former feelings of   frustration and disappointments over what did not turn out the way I wanted.

More important than the above, are the personal relationships.  Do we expect one day in the year to make up for an entire year long of strained relationships, especially in the family?  When I see my goal to improve my feelings of connectedness to family and friends, all year long, and do not expect Christmas to cure such things,  Christmas has become more enjoyable. 

Surely the physical and mental stresses and exhaustion help bring on discouragement and sadness too this time of year.  My goal is to take extra naps, eat  healthy most of the time, and exercise even though it's harder right now.  I squeeze in times of heart to heart chats with family and friends too - the best gifts of all!  And how wonderful to know these stress-busters are gifts we can give ourselves all  year long!

It occurred to me that the very first Christmas,  could have been a time of financial stress, frustration, unwelcome surprises,  unmet expectations,  and loneliness for Mary and Joseph.  So I guess that puts  us in good company if we too experience those things.

Imagine we were forced to do something by the government that was very inconvenient, expensive, un comfortable etc, like they were forced to do. 

Mary and  Joseph  arrived tired, and on the verge of giving birth no less! -  in a strange city.   Surely they felt disappointed at the lack of available  rooms.

But God showed up for them in very unexpected ways -- beautiful music from the Angels to welcome them and their newborn Son for example.

  I have a feeling God will show up for us too, if we but open our eyes and our hearts and let Him do it in His own mysterious, but perfect and often totally unpredictable, unexpected ways...

Joy to the world...happy holidays are possible!