Holidays

 If our culture is making people sick, perhaps we should change it.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, known by the acronym SAD, used to be called the holiday blues. I’m not competent to discuss the psychology or the research, but this seems obvious: Since the holidays make a lot of people sad and depressed, perhaps we should find better ways to observe holidays. Maybe we should find better holidays.

I’m interested in the solstice and plan to observe it this year. It was widely observed in ancient times. I heard about Stonehenge and Norsemen around the Yule log before I learned of the observances of people closer to home in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. I’m catching up with traditions in other parts of the world.

Ancient peoples must have watched the ebbing of the light with concern. But they knew it would stop. They knew when the longest night would be. They marked it.

The ancient Greeks had a word, χάρις, which meant a kind of inexplicable gift or favor. They had a different word for gifts that followed some rational scheme, like reciprocal gifts or wedding presents. The passing of the longest night and the returning of longer days must have seemed like a strange gift to ancient people: undoubtedly good, inexplicable yet predictable.

I see my own life in that light. Much good has come my way that I couldn’t even understand. How could I possibly claim that I deserved it when I couldn’t even comprehend it?

It seems to me that some of that sentiment might have been behind those observances by the people of old. I’m going to see if I can connect with them this year.