c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Do you greet the holiday season with “Bah humbug!” rather than “Ho! Ho! Ho!?” Would you be thrilled if the Grinch did steal Christmas?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, don’t worry. You’re not deranged, malevolent or uncaring. You have the “Christmas blues.”

Every year, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, when life becomes a whirl of parties, family get-togethers and gift-giving, some people suffer from the “holiday blues,” say pastors and experts on popular culture.

Jonathan M. Himmelhoch, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and an expert on the “holiday blues,” says such blues are not a mental illness but “a normal reaction some people have to the holiday season with all of its social and moral complexity, with all its social and family interactions and demands.”

The psychological data on the Christmas blues is contrary to what many people believe, according to William R. Nye, director of community services of the Blanton Peale Institute, a pastoral counseling training center in New York.

“Christmas isn’t the peak time for suicide,” he said. “Suicide peaks in the spring.”

Why do people get the holiday blues?

Experts cite a number of factors, ranging from the commercialism and hype that permeate the holiday season to the breakup of the traditional family. Nye says, “If you live alone and don’t like it, you might get the blues. People with health or financial concerns might get the blues.”

Perhaps the most common reason that people experience the blues “is that Christmas touches our most idealized memories of our childhood. People feel blue because of the loss of that time in their lives … over losing the ability to enter innocently into the joy of the season,” Nye said.

Christmas is often a time of unmet expectations, said David Larson, president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, Md., and an expert on the relationship of spirituality and mental health.

“You have high expectations. But, then … the parties you thought would be great aren’t great. You see all these ads on TV for toys, but you can’t get your kids everything they want. At Christmas dinner, Mom gets drunk again, a family argument erupts, the car breaks down or somebody has the flu. You get the blues.”

Christmas is often a downer for Gen-Xers, the generation born between 1965 and 1980, said Andrew Rudd, assistant professor of communication arts at Malone College in Canton, Ohio.

“We want Christmas to help us find continuity and reconciliation,” he said. “We want to celebrate traditions and our values with our families.”

It’s hard for Gen-Xers to find continuity at Christmas, said Rudd, who at 30 calls himself a Gen-Xer. “Many Xers’ parents were divorced when they were growing up. Holiday traditions and reunions are disrupted by the presence of step-siblings and stepparents.”

Does faith _ or questioning your faith _ play a role in the Christmas blues?

“I doubt if faith is a factor,” Nye said. “I don’t find that people have the same doubts about Christmas that they do about Easter.”

Sharon Solt Joseph, pastor of the Church of the Manger United Church of Christ in Bethlehem, Pa., has a different perspective.

“Some people have a hard time when they hear Christmas stories that tell about angels and a virgin birth. If they don’t believe these stories, they begin to question everything they believe, including the existence of God.”

This cuts them off from their faith, she said, “the thing that could comfort them” if they are blue at Christmas.

Christmas can be “especially difficult” for people who have been recently widowed, according to Cheryl Perry, a developer of the Whole People of God curriculum distributed by Logos Publications and Wood Lake Books.

“Christmas comes at the darkest time of the year. Some churches hold `blue Christmas’ or `the longest night’ worship services on Dec. 21, the day of the winter solstice.” At these services, candles are lit and prayers are said to comfort the bereaved and to remember loved ones who have died.

People with the Christmas blues should take heart, according to the experts. “The demands of the season will end,” Himmelhoch said. “Spring will come. You’ll get over the blues.”

Nye, however, cautioned that people should talk to their pastor or a mental health professional if they are depressed and should seek help if they have two or more symptoms of depression such as loss of appetite, sleeplessness, loss of weight or loss of energy.

You can lesson the impact of the holiday blues, Larson said. “Set limits on your time and on your budget. For instance, send holiday cards out after Christmas.”

And, Larson added, don’t forget that even with the holiday blues, “For many, including myself, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. You just have to prepare for it.”

DEA END WOLFE