JCC Census The Post-Holiday Blues

Well, January 2 is upon us. Technically still a holiday for some, but for me at least, it definitely feels like the holidays ended yesterday and so my post-holiday blues are now in full swing!

As any Google search will tell you, the post-holiday blues are quite common and often have multiple causes/contributing factors, including:

--a feeling of "let down" due to over-anticipation/unrealistic expectations for the holiday period
--short daytime hours/effects of SAD
--for those that had significant time off, a sense of reluctance or even dread of returning to work
--cumulative effect of less healthy behaviors over the holidays (overeating/too many sweets/too much alcohol/being off of one's typical sleep and exercise schedule)
--the end of special/fun holiday activities and/or social events
--continued grief at having had to go through the first holiday season after the loss of a loved one

So this is a thread for sharing your post-holiday blues experiences and feelings (past or present), as well as any "life hacks" you have found useful in helping yourself to keep those blues at bay!

 

I find the key to avoiding the post-x blues in general is to never look forward to anything.

 

Working a crummy/stressful job contributes greatly to my post holiday blues, which is probably why I'm not feeling it as badly this year. The last five years especially had been rough in that department, but now, I'm feeling pretty pretty good.

 

whatever you do don’t take down your tree

 

A lot of my lifetime of post-holiday blues has always come from mild-to-moderate dread of returning to work. Though I feel bad about saying that because I fully recognize that my job is a pretty privileged one that I was fortunate enough to have fully chosen for myself. But I do have chronic work-related anxiety, so especially after doing my job for 30+ years, somehow magically being able to retire early would likely make a lot of my phb disappear.

I'm happy for the improvement in your work life, @I Are The Internets !

Another contributing factor for me this year was a big family blow-up that happened with my sister. She is a really hard person to get along with and the whole family was very upset with something she did, but I also just feel sorry for her because she's kind of a broken person. And it's very sad to me that as relatively small as my immediate family is, it seems almost impossible to have a visit that goes well when everyone is together.

 

I don't really enjoy getting back into the "working every day" thing, but other than that I mostly enjoy the post-holiday time period, especially if it was a good holiday season with family and friends. It's refreshing to start a new year, and the holiday decoration grinch in me enjoys knowing that once we get the Christmas decorations down it'll be almost ten months before we have to start again for Halloween.

 

I am sad because I live in Wisconsin where it is usually miserably cold in January. I think it will get more miserable this year because I have a three month old baby and I had more help with him during the holidays with my family and husband being off. All the help will be gone. :/

 

Do you have any friends nearby with babies? If so maybe you could get together with them during the day for an hour or two to share childcare duties?

 

Yes. Thankfully I am meeting up with a couple of ladies who had the same midwife as me. I live in a new area and it’s been hard making friends, especially with Covid.

 

That's good. Hopefully the adult company will help.

 

Post-holiday? It's January, the holiday season isn't for another twelve months!

 

Though it's still very early in terms of poll results, I'm finding it very interesting to see the results almost evenly split between the "pretty much every year" crew and the "almost never/never" folks. I envy all those who don't suffer from phb!

 

Between that and the ewok thing, it's a lot to ask.

 

maybe burning down a certain giant straw goat will make you feel better

 

For the first time in a long while, I've had nine days to rest before having to dive back into sixty-plus hour weeks with financial hardship around. I know I'm going to be maudlin tomorrow morning...

 

I'm glad you did finally get some much-needed rest, but sorry to hear you'll be back in all that stress tomorrow. Hang in there and vent about your pbh here if you think it will help

 

I am lucky enough to not be much-afflicted by the "post holiday blues" but as I have gotten older, and despite the fact that with age time passes more quickly (so winter is, arguably, perceived as shorter!), I've really had enough of winter by roughly the end of January. I'm tired of the cold and dark and threat of snow (and thus, snow shoveling) as we get into February, and despite plenty of historical precedents, I am overly optimistic that "we've turned the corner" if early March weather is even marginally nice.

For those of you suffering true "post holiday blues", I hope they aren't too bad, that you find some fun things that offer distraction, and/or you have something you can look forward to - maybe something fun coming up where you can do some reading/planning NOW, such as a trip or vacation or camping expedition, or maybe just something you can remind yourself is on the horizon.

 

I’m getting it a little myself. I’ve had to tackle a few issues at work recently and there’s a couple of problems I need to fix when I get back. The other problem is the cold. I work outdoors and the wind and cold were particularly difficult this year. I can deal with it, but I’ve gotten comfortable on my couch with my central heating.