December 28, 2017
The Dreary Days of December have come again!
Have you ever noticed that the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day seems drearier than the rest of the year?
The presents are opened, the stockings are empty, the Christmas decorations have lost some of their luster...and we find ourselves wishing for summer.
It could be the sugar crash that most of us experience. Or it might be the symbolic end of another year, although birthdays are a better anniversary for the passage of years, regardless of the annual year-end countdowns that fill our airways the last week of December.
But this insidious feeling of bleakness has its roots sunk deep in our psyche. We have long been led to believe that dark, dreary, and dull equal depressing. There is actually some science behind this notion. It’s called a lack of Vitamin D. The most potent source of Vitamin D, which is not actually a vitamin, is sunlight.
Think about it.
December is the calendar opposite of June, with the winter equinox being diametrically opposite the summer solstice—the shortest day of the year and the longest day of the year in terms of sunlight. So, maybe it makes sense that December seems dreary and depressing. December averages 8 hours of sunlight each day. Considering most people work 8-10 hours a day, that means we go to work in the dark and leave work in the dark. Slogging through each day as if we are mired in syrupy mud, brain fogged by too much food, beverage, and family, depression etching its mournful buzzwords in our collective conscious because Christmas seems more about spending money than spending time with loved ones, is it any wonder that we flounder a bit.
However, it seems, despite myths to the contrary, that all this dark, dreariness does not make us suicidal. Depressed, yes; suicidal, no! This might be the one bright spot in these otherwise dark days—suicide rates actually drop during December. According to those in the know (therapists, shrinks, counselors, and various others with alphabet strings behind their names), we bring these depressing times on ourselves by feeling the need to buy a bigger, better holiday.
Whatever the reason for this season of dreary days, Merle Haggard said it best, or should that be sung it best, “if we make it through December, everything's gonna be alright, I know...If we make it through December we’ll be fine.” Because the sun will rise, and a new day will dawn, and December will be nothing but a memory
If we make it through December. Here is a link to Merle's song if you would like to give it a listen.
