THE HOLIDAYS ARE UPON US. . . .

Gosh, I don’t know whether I should write that line with caution signs all around it or just wish all of you the happiest of the season from the first turkey bite to the last New Year’s Eve sip?

I’m reading so many of articles about the “holiday blues” and the gefunkiness that strikes a lot of us at this time that it seems to me it’s time to reframe the holiday, you know?

Sure, there are a whole bunch of  things that can make us blue and a bit lonely at this time of the year:  loved ones absent for whatever reason; all the joy other folks seem to be having that we don’t seem to feel; personal crises of illness and/or economies; the early dark and cold for those of us not living in warmer climates; and all the work involved in being, quite frankly, traditionally joyful according to the magazine articles.

It’s enough to make even a Pollyanna gefunky.

So here’s my Holiday Mantra:

The only thing that matters is spending time with whoever lands in your home.

Yep.

That’s it.

Cards don’t have to be done.  Ten pies don’t have to be baked.  The perfect present, whatever that might be!, doesn’t have to be under a tree.

Heck, if you don’t feel like putting up a tree or festooning your abode?  Then don’t.

Just light a candle and think of all the good in your life, all the people you love and who care for you.  Even if the holidays find you by yourself, you can do that.  You can celebrate the light that always comes after the dark.

In other words, I guess what I’m advocating, for me, anyway, is to do what feels good, even if you’re not producing the holidays of the magazne spreads.

I’ve done it before, and somehow, down deep, I find the spirit of the season in the quietness of just. . . being in the moment.

I hope you, too, can find the spirit of the holidays and celebrate them in whatever fashion works for you and yours.

Warmest wishes for these last days of 2011,

Lindsay Longford