How to Beat the Holiday Blues

How to Beat the Holiday Blues

With the holidays quickly approaching, it can sometimes be easy to forget that not everyone looks forward to the holiday season.
For many people, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s can often be constant reminders of all the things that are wrong in our lives. Perhaps there isn’t enough money to make ends meet or our relationships with our friends and family aren’t exactly what we wish they’d be.

Whatever the situation, it can have us seeing green (with envy) and red (with anger) while everyone else is singing yuletide greetings and spreading holiday cheer.

Here are a few tips to make the holiday season a little brighter:

• Do Your Homework: Not everyone celebrates traditional American holidays. The last three months of the year are chalk full of a variety of cultural celebrations from Yom Kippur to Christmas to Kwanza. Most of these activities feature a large array of community events.
  

• Find out what’s happening in your local community and make it a point to attend. If you’re looking to meet new people, make new friends, etc., they’re not just going to come knocking on your door. Mix and mingle. See and be seen. Who knows? With a little effort you could be sharing these tips with someone else who may be in need during next year’s holiday season.

• Do Something Special to Pamper Yourself: With all of the focus on gift giving during the holiday season we often forget about the special gifts that we can give ourselves.

• Volunteer Your Time: Whoever said it’s better to give than receive was definitely on to something. An easy way to lift your spirits and remind yourself of just how fortunate you truly are, is to volunteer your time and services to those who are less fortunate than yourself. Sickness, homelessness and the rest of the ills of society don’t take a break during the holiday season, so why should you? Volunteering at a local hospital, shelter or foster care facility during the holidays can brighten not only your day, but someone else’s as well.
  
  Have a safe and happy holiday season!