If you love this time of year, chances are good that you are not even sure how ‘holiday blues’ could be a term that applies to so many people.
If your favorite holiday is Halloween and your favorite genre is horror, chances are good that you are neutral on, if not somewhat against, Christmas. Halloween is a solitary holiday, you can do what you like, you can dress up, you can choose how you celebrate. No gifts are required except sometimes candy for children trick-or-treating. The focus is primarily fun. Lots of people love Halloween because they feel the most like themselves when the spooky season is upon us.
Christmas, on the other hand, is a family-centric holiday, and it comes right after another family-centric holiday, Thanksgiving. There are traditions and obligations that you may not agree with on a person or ethical level. You may find yourself alone on Christmas when everyone else is with their family. You may be grieving family that is no longer in your life. You may be resentful of the holidays because of childhood trauma. You may be in poverty and unable to celebrate the way that you would like. It can be an extremely difficult time. Statistics show that depressive episodes, therapy intake appointments, behavioral health hospitalizations, relapses, and suicide attempts all rise during the last couple months of the year.
If you are a creative person, you may be able to channel your creativity and your holiday blues into something wonderful.
For me, writing is an outlet for my thoughts and emotions. It allows me to channel everything I dislike about the holidays into tales where nightmarish humans meet nightmarish ends. It also allows me to process some of my negative feelings about this time of year in a way that is not disruptive to others. I can safely explore the aspects of the holidays that I hate, and glorify the ones that I love most. Plus, I can write about avenging ‘angels’ taking revenge upon characters that represent people I wish would get their just desserts already. I also love that one day people may read what I have written around the holidays and draw some comfort of their own from it.
Here are some great questions to ask to get the creativity flowing in a way that is both healing and productive:
- What do I love about the holidays and want to preserve?
Whether this is putting up your Christmas tree, honoring your religious traditions, or spending time with someone in particular, hang onto the fact that it is not entirely miserable, because you want to incorporate the things you love just as much as the stuff you don’t. - What symbols of the holiday really speak to me?
Visual art and written art both rely heavily on symbols, so narrow down which symbols you want to glorify and which ones you want to dramatize for your art. - What do I really dislike about the holidays?
Is it how family-oriented they are? Is it how materialistic they have become? Is it rooted in poverty? Childhood trauma? Feeling lonely or isolated or misunderstood? Whatever it is, narrow it down as much as you can, and tap into it when you are getting ready to create. - How can I dramatize this?
Sure, not everything has to be something others can relate to, but chances are good that people will relate to what you create if you dramatize your own experiences. As an artist, creating a scene of the perfect Christmas living room covered in blood with a child holding a knife makes a statement that will reach people with similar feelings. It will also give the traumatized child within a voice and power that they did not have when you were young. - How can I work through this?
Sometimes creating art is therapeutic on its own. Sometimes you need outside help. If creating the art is not enough to help you feel better, or it is actually triggering something unpleasant, find a trustworthy person to talk to about the holiday season bringing you down. This may be someone you love or it may be a therapist. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to tap into this feeling to create art in the future, but it will no longer have power over you and threaten to wreck your life every holiday season.
Using art of any kind to process your feelings about the holiday season can be incredibly constructive and lead to some truly amazing creations. It is perfectly okay to hate this season, to grieve the things you do not have this time of year, and to generally relate to Grinch and Scrooge more than the people around you. Bah humbug! But it is also amazing to love it, to want very badly to love it like you used to, and to love parts of it while wishing other parts were no longer a thing. All of these feelings are perfectly valid. If you are feeling too down and need support, I recommend talking to a loved one, a therapist, or a support group.
- If you are battling thoughts of self-harm, relapse, or suicide, text START to 741-741 to speak to a crisis counselor electronically, or call the suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-8255.
- For help aimed at LGBTQIA youth and young adults, contact The Trevor Project crisis hotline at 866-488-7386 or access the chat on their website if calling is not safe. Hitting escape twice will close the chat and erase your history.
- If you need assistance getting out of an abusive situation this holiday season, contact the domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or visit the website to chat with someone if it is safer to do so. Hitting escape twice will close the chat.
