How to Take Care of You This Season

The holidays are a distinctly bipolar time of year. While they may bring twinkling lights, laughter and
mistletoe to some, the rest of the population anticipates the first strains of festive music and Hallmark
cards as if they were portents of a coming plague.

For many, the holidays are hell. One is expected to have a loving family and friends, enough cash to
shower them with gifts and a warm house filled with the scents of roasting turkey and pumpkin pie. A
surprisingly high percentage of the population have none of that — the homeless, the recently divorced,
students who are stuck on campus and people too poor to pay for a postage stamp. Many are also
estranged by either innate cynicism or a series of ever expanding bad choices. These bad choices are
usually accelerated by pre-New Year’s festivities, a time when the Norman Rockwell version of heavenly
peace is shoved down our throats like so much stuffing.

Contrary to popular belief, suicide rates actually drop before and during the holidays. I believe that this
is due in part to sheer good manners, along with the fact that the shit hasn’t entirely hit the fan yet and
everyone is still in a sugar-plum induced coma. The real danger comes after the holidays, when the
crap has been vaporized and is settling in a fine mist over post-holiday revelers who are just coming
to. In January, the suicide rate jumps by about 40%. Expanded waistlines, shattered illusions and inflated credit card debts may be part of the reason why.

So, here are some tips to avoid those post yule urges to put a gun to your head:

1. Do NOT drink an entire case of Heinekin and chase it with a bottle of wine every night, promising
yourself that you will make a clean start of it in January. Likewise, do not eat three cheesecakes and a
partridge stuffed with a pear tree every day and swear you will live on lettuce leaves from 1/1/16 until
the fourth of July. You won’t. Just trust me on this.

2. Do NOT fall prey to the tear-jerking, gingerbread encrusted commercials dancing on your devices.
The retailers are out to suck the last drop of cash out of you, targeting your brain with every sentimental guilt trip in the book. Many stores do a third or more of their entire year’s business during November and December. Good for them. Not so great for you.

3. Do NOT shut yourself away and sneer at everyone who is partying and tossing presents. All it does
is make you feel crankier. Yes, commercialism sucks, but there is something truly warming about the
whole idea of peace, love and goodwill towards men. If you have already alienated everyone you
know, make yourself useful to strangers. Volunteer at a community kitchen or for First Night Celebrations. You have more in common with the rest of the planet than you know. Or, try hosting a party at your own rat hole of an apartment for other cynics who are at loose ends. Such dinners can be surprisingly cheerful — sort of like a family gathering, but minus the drunk uncles, vomiting cousins and  generations of emotional baggage.

And just remember — what happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens during the holidays
tends to stay on your waistline, in your liver and as overdue bills. The laws of physics and consequence
are not suspended just because the mistletoe is. This year, give yourself the gift of common sense. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.