Journal Entry #25: Holiday Funk

Date: November 23, 2007

Time: 22:18

Before the “experts” came up with a fancy-sounding name for it, “Seasonal Affective Disorder” or “SAD”, people got the blues around the holidays. Sometime they would go into a deep funk that in some instances, they don’t get out of until around 2 weeks after the start of Spring.

I get out of it just in time for the beginning of Summer.

Now, it’s easy to understand if someone gets misty-eyed, or choked up when they hear an emotionally charged Christmas song, say “Little Drummer Boy”, or “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, but can anyone explain to me why someone would get teary-eyed when they hear “Step Into Christmas” by Elton John? I mean, just look at the lyrics.

Welcome to my Christmas song
I'd like to thank you for the year
So I'm sending you this Christmas card
To say it's nice to have you here
I'd like to sing about all the things
Your eyes and mind can see
So hop aboard the turntable
Oh step into Christmas with me

Step into Christmas
Let's join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission's free

Take care in all you do next year
And keep smiling through the days
If we can help to entertain you
Oh we will find the ways
So merry Christmas one and all
There's no place I'd rather be
Than asking you if you'd oblige
Stepping into Christmas with me

Now, do you see anything in those lyrics that could evoke a wave of sadness? Neither do I, and yet, this morning, that’s exactly what happened to me. The song came on, and I started getting all choked up. The last time that that happened was Christmastime 2001. So okay, maybe at that time, when it didn’t really feel like Christmas, a cheery song like that one isn’t going to make things feel any better, it might just makes things worse by trying to evoke happiness where there is only sadness and misery.

However, after that, any time I heard the song, I had no problem. There were no tears, no choking up, nothing. Why now? Why after all that time am I affected this way? Maybe if I wasn’t so stressed by my having to have gone back to school, or if I had a job that I tolerated more than the one I have now, or even the one I had before.

Maybe if I knew what it was like to be honestly and truly happy, and to have that feeling last for more than a few minutes. To be able to sustain feeling happy for a lot longer than I have been feeling it lately, which, to tell the truth, is never.