With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas looming, it’s just natural for people to start looking for tall places from which they can jump.  Statistics prove that more people get depressed during the holidays. 
 
The reason for this is because we are forced to buy gifts for people we don’t like.  Most of the time we are related to these people so there is NO WAY OUT.  Fortunately, a lot of department stores have caught on, and they carry dirt cheap gifts for that not-so-special someone in your family.
 
One perfect dirt cheap gift is the ugly boxed handkerchiefs.  They cost less than five bucks.  I highly recommend those for the creeps in your family.  At the same time I would be amiss if I didn’t warn you that YOU might receive such a gift.  That does not make you a bad person.  It only proves you have bad relatives.  Dr. Charlotte recommends that you rewrap the gift and give it right back to the jerk the following year.
 
Another way to alleviate stress is to recycles all the stupid or worthless gifts you receive throughout the year.  A friend of mine has a closet filled with cheap crystal bowls, vases, small appliances, picture frames, cosmetic bags, and, you guess it, boxed handkerchiefs.  About two weeks before Christmas, she opens that closet and goes shopping. 
 
I hope this tip will help you in planning for the holidays.  I’ll have plenty of helpful suggestions for you over the next few weeks on account of I don’t like most of the people in my family.  Perhaps you’ll be able to ad a few tips of your own to our therapy sessions.
 
In the meantime, rememeber: chocolate is the only perfect food.
 

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.