Christmas Blues

To a varying degree, those suffering with depression get the Christmas blues.  We have expectations that it will be a time of checking off the list of gifts requested that we dutifully buy.  It makes the whole thing thoughtless and redundant, and we just give up and just give the recipient cash TO GET WHATEVER THE HELL THEY want, sit around a table to eat a feast many go to church, and as the “family” gathers there is talk of the world the way it is and maybe we even remember what the day is really for. 

Christmas is a celebration of the most unique event in human history that is remembered by the wonderful Christmas’s of yore.  I asked a pastor what the meaning of the “mas” on Christmas meant.  He is very learned on such things and said it meant “gathering”, hence a gathering for Christ.  Thus Christmas is a gathering of families and humanity to celebrate Jesus Christ’s birth as a human baby.  The gathering part may be the reason we are depressed.  Some of us have the blues because of non-Christmas, dysfunctional families, bad experiences, mundane repetition of traditions and can’t wait for it to be over.  I had wonderful parents and a great Christmas past so wonderful memories fill my melancholy mind. 

Growing up on a farm where my dad would take one of our sleds and make slay tracks in the driveway leading to the barn and my brother ringing jingle bells and stomped his feet on the roof and us kids really thought Santa had just paid us a visit and when the milking was done we would go back the house that Christmas eve and low and behold under the tree were our presents some we expected and some surprises (the surprises were always the best).  My uncles and their families came over on Christmas day and we opened more presents and listened to our Grandma bitch because we didn’t eat all of her bakery load of pies.

When I was a worship leader at our little church (a while back) one Christmas Eve service,  I had a snow machine installed and at the service when the traditional lighting of the candles at the end of the service, without letting the pastor know, we made it snow much to her surprise.   All these things were surprises and anticipation of the wonderful things that we were going to experience.

2000 years ago the uneducated poor shepherds just doing the usual mundane tasks of tending their sheep got a surprise as angles showed up.  They probably didn’t what was up with that and told them to come to see a baby who was going to change the world.  Joseph was surprised 9 months earlier when he found out his betrothed Mary was pregnant with a child that he knew wasn’t his.  Later he knew why the baby was not his but God’s.  She knew because the angels told her.  Then as she gave birth (after having birth pains on a donkey on the way to a barn to bring this baby into the world. I believe the surprise gifts are the best requiring thought and discernment to find out what someone would really like but not expect even if it’s just a card telling them how much they mean to you, and you love and care for. The gifts are all year long, the surprise might be that you remember them.

Jesus was the gift the world sorely needed, was rejected, and most wanted to return Him to the store to find something they really could use.   Little do most of us know how much we need peace and not-self.  Maybe that is why the world is such a Chinese-made cheap place that doesn’t come with a warranty or lasts very long.

Oh, how is miss my mom and Dad and my brother (who committed suicide because of depression) and me and my sister are the only ones left to remember those Wonderful Christmas’s past. It is good to remember those good moments and bury the bad in a big snowdrift do a good deed and surprise someone who expects nothing but apathy.

One of my favorite things in this season is while stopping at a sit-down restaurant or somewhere to grab a bite and the waitress serving me is working on this night probably because she has to, or is depressed as well. I put the customary tip on my card and leave a $100 bill just sticking out from under a napkin and write on the napkin “God loves you”.   I pause a moment outside and look through the window from a concealed distance and maybe see a tear roll down their face and for a brief moment, one depressed person healed another. Surprise, Surprise.
May I wish you a Merry Christmas – wishing that you see Christ in your gatherings this year?