Christmas and COVID-19: How holiday memories can help you deal with depression
As a caregiver for a bedbound patient, I know that a good way to get depressed is by obsessing about things I’m not getting to do anymore.
That list is a lot longer these days for many of us, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It can be a real downer to think about fun activities we’ve enjoyed before but can’t do now: Vacations, travel, holiday events, concerts, fundraisers, community gatherings, weddings, big birthday parties, even lunches with a bunch of friends.
All those pleasurable, sociable activities are off the calendar now for all of us for the foreseeable future.
Bummer.
But you know what? I’m fine with it.
I have husband Richard here with me, and despite his ongoing medical impairments, what motivates me are his radiant, loving smile, quirky sense of humor, his laugh and expanding list of physical accomplishments.
What else keeps me upbeat and full speed ahead?
Rather than concentrating on what I can’t do now, it’s much more enjoyable taking a mental jaunt back to similar things I’ve done in the past.
As I prepped our 2020 Thanksgiving meal for four, and deeply inhaled the wondrous mixed scents of pumpkin pie spice, turkey, cider, poultry seasoning, garlic and sherry, I laughed, remembering a catering table board our big group shared in the 1990s.
We weren’t in a lavishly decorated dining room. Instead, our holiday celebration was in the parking lot of the Tin Village catering kitchen we’d built; Red Moose Cookie Co. is there now.
We were dining there rather than at home because, as we ate, we were also were carefully monitoring the roasting of about two dozen Thanksgiving meals we’d deliver to other families later in the day.
It was tons of fun, if hectic. Since then, I’ve learned that it’s almost as much work — and enjoyment — to make dinner for four as for 24. However, there aren’t nearly as many dishes to wash!
Other sights on Thanksgiving weekend got me thinking about other wonderful holiday times I’ve had, appreciating those memories, and anticipating the chance to make new ones together now.
For instance, watching the modified Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on television took me back to my New York childhood, attending the parade with my family and watching the parade on TV every other year that I could.
This year’s parade, with its vignettes from Broadway plays, also reminded me of on-stage performances I’ve seen in The City and elsewhere: Plays, operas, stand-up comedians, symphony concerts, melodramas, ballets and more, productions large and small, big-time and small-town.
And watching one Macy’s parade entry made me recall, as I do every year, a special annual show we enjoyed that always conjured up Christmastime images — seeing the Rockettes dance troupe reform in full, precision mode during their Holiday Spectaculars.
Their tin soldier parade performance this year was a bit disappointing, without the endorphin-producing, high-kicking coordinated chorus line at the end. But maybe that extra effort would have been too draining, since they were all wearing masks.
What else have I been I enjoying vicariously through my memories this holiday season?
• Seeing snow on the Weather Channel reminded me of “sledding” down my grandparents’ driveway slope on a trash-can lid, of ice skating on a frozen Colorado pond and of riding horseback into Yosemite National Park in a snowstorm, before the general public was allowed in there in the winter.
• Opening an online Advent calendar sent by dear friends Bill and Shirley Bianchi (great fun on www.jacquielawson.com), and enjoying an imaginative physical Advent calendar filled with a jam-a-day —anybody for lemon-yuzu or raspberry-lychee? — sent by another dear friend, Linda Nakamura. Those made me think of holiday church services I’ve attended, in several different religions.
• In 2000, being one of 96 lucky, dressed-to-the-nines people attending the Friends of Hearst Castle’s first Holiday Feast in the historic house museum’s Refectory, and going up into the musicians’ loft to take a photo of the festive scene below. (The Friends group is now called The Foundation at Hearst Castle.)
• Various live-streamed tree-lighting ceremonies evoked childhood visions of the giant conifer that magically appeared in my grandparents’ home on Christmas morning, cutting down our tree in the snow, seeing the Rockefeller Center tree light up and our yearlong decorated trees now.
Rose-colored glasses? Maybe. Too Pollyanna for you? Perhaps. But next time the pandemic restrictions get you down, try a little dose of looking back to better enjoy the present and anticipate the future with joy.
Drag out those pictures. Reminisce together. Laugh.
Maybe it will help.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
