How to Reckon with the Changing Holidays

This can be a time of year that people can find very stressful. There are lots of reasons for this that we’ve talked about on this blog in past entries; stress over diet, family drama, budget issues, all sorts of things. Another thing that might be stressful or a cause for despair that we as a culture sometimes don’t acknowledge. And often it’s the little things. Maybe you only used to celebrate Christmas with your immediate family, but now you and your siblings get all the collective kids together to open presents. It’s not a bad thing necessarily, but you can’t be blamed for feeling a sense of strangeness because Christmas means something slightly different to your kids than it did to you. Of course, those feelings can have much less benign causes and can sometimes feel much more dire. Maybe you aren’t financially as comfortable as your parents were and you can’t buy your own children as many presents as you received growing up (and with America’s shrinking middle class, this might well be the case for a lot of us). Or maybe the holidays are a melancholic time now because you’ve lost a loved one who you used to enjoy it with. It could be lots of things…

There is no telling how the holidays have changed since the time we were children. As adults, there are bound to be a million ways to feel about all this. But even if the traditions themselves didn’t change, we would and the way we see the world around us would be fundamentally different than it used to be. Sorry if this seems weirdly sentimental. Let’s make a cup of coffee and throw in a little of the Leaner Creamer Frosted Gingerbread flavor… aaahhhh… that nectar of the gods that is tasty coffee which keeps our juices flowing… ANYWAY!

The point that I think we’re trying to arrive at, is that change is both inevitable and unavoidable. It’s okay to wax nostalgic to a certain extent and feel the longing for times past, but also never lose sight of the moment. Instead of fretting about the way the holidays “should” be, maybe try and tune into the moment and just enjoy how they are, because loving the past should never come at the expense of living in the moment. Who knows, if you really pay attention, you may even find that the holidays are even better now than they were before.

Happy Holidays! Enjoy the Frosted Gingerbread flavor!