“THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.” REALLY?

CONSIDER THE DOWNSIDE OF CHRISTMAS.

Part of the downside of Christmas is this myth that everything and everyone is merry and bright, and if you aren’t, you must be a Scrooge. Or a Grinch. Or Burgemeister Meister Burgher. Indeed, much of what follows also applies to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ōmisoka, and other holidays too numerous to mention. Almost everyone (every character?) suffers one or more of these downsides of typical celebrations.

Exposure Fatigue

“Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues reflects the loneliness despair of Christmas.
  • Going into a store in October and see “decorations” for Halloween, Thanksgiving, AND Christmas
  • Christmas music that begins to be played everywhere before Thanksgiving
    • Christmas music gets old fast, particularly for people working in retail
  • Commercials touting the “perfect” gift
  • The pervasiveness of sappy Christmas movies (and over-exposure to the good ones, such as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street”)

Physical Fatigue

  • Decorating
  • Food preparation
  • Package wrapping and/or mailing
  • Attending celebratory events, especially navigating office/work place parties
  • Hassles of travel (insane boarding lines, delayed flights, driving clogged highways)
  • Making gifts or cards by hand
  • Shopping for presents
    • Finding a mall parking space 2 miles from the shops
  • Tracking down the right present for the right person 

Weather

  • Living in a warm place, one laments the lack of snow
  • Living in a cold climate, one laments cold and snow that keep people inside
  • Ice storms that keep one from attending/hosting a holiday event
  • Combination of extra traffic, stressed drivers, and wintry weather can make every drive a terrifying experience

Family Stresses

  • Feeling compelled to see family you’d rather not
    • Spending time with the family of one’s significant other can be even worse
  • Conflicts between/among guests
  • Pretending to like presents you don’t
  • Taking awkward photos
  • Kids demands for presents and apply pressure in  in terms of values, money, and parenting
  • Waiting in endless lines for kids to visit Santa at the mall
  • Bad situations can worsen, and marriages are strained
    • Recently divorced parents navigating custody arrangements
    • Divorce lawyers have their busiest month in January

Financial Strains

Why does everyone want a pony?
  • Feeling pressed to give a gift of equivalent value, even when the “gift lists” for giver and recipient aren’t the same
  • Dealing with a year when one’s gift-giving must be cut/downsized in number and/or expense and it will be obvious
  • Higher electric bill for huge outdoor displays 
  • Travel, tickets, decorations, food, etc., can drain bank accounts and max out credit cards even without buying gifts

Physical Health

  • Emergency room visits are up 5-12% around Christmas
    • Slips and falls on icy walkways or while putting up decorations
    • Sharp object injuries from unfamiliar cooking utensils, new toys, assembling gifts
    • Falls from a height
    • Workplace accidents
    • Abdominal discomfort from overeating
    • Psychiatric disorders exacerbated by stress and crowds
    • Poisonings
      • Incorrectly prepared food
      • Overconsumption of alcohol
  • Disruption of healthy patterns
    • Abandoning diets or eating irregularly
    • Loss of sleep
    • Failure to follow doctor’s instructions for treatment and/or medication
  • A typical Christmas meal is likely to be two-to-three times the recommended daily calorie count
    • Indulging in meals, cakes, pies, chocolates, or whatever sweets
    • Cookies, biscuits, candy, homemade treats brought in to the workplace or shared by shops for the entire season
  • Stress levels are almost certain to be higher than usual
    • Stress contributes to heart disease, stroke, and cancer
    • Stress leading to immune system breakdowns, leading to colds, for example
  • Mingling with more people exposes them to more infections, especially flu and flu-like symptoms
  • Falls, cuts, and burns result in tens of thousand of visits to the ER
  • Alcohol consumption resulting in alcohol poisoning, broken bones from skips and fall, car and home accidents, etc.
  • Domestic violence is up about one-third compared to an average day

An ambulance driver explained it to me this way:

“It’s like everyone’s on a hurt-yourself schedule, same every year. Early morning starts with the drunk drivers going home from parties, sometimes the homeless with hypothermia, depends on the weather. Then the kids get up way too early and open their presents and start hitting each other with them or falling off anything with wheels and breaking any bone you can think of.

Even the angels are drinking too much!

“After that, you get a mix of cooking accidents and alcohol poisonings through the afternoon. Eventually, people hit their limit with family, have too much to drink, and start beating on each other. That’s also about the time ‘lonely hearts’ start calling us, asking to go to the hospital just because they have no place else to go and they don’t want to be alone.

“People eat too much at dinner and get the ‘too-much-macaroni sweats.’ They get heartburn and think they’re having a heart attack. We get more alcohol calls, either people fighting or passing out.

“And then everyone heads home, driving drunk. Better hope your tree doesn’t catch on fire. Happy Holidays.”

Mental Health

  • There is a MYTH that suicides peak around Christmas – they actually peak in spring
  • That said, it is breakup season
    • The peak breakup time is the two weeks before Christmas
  • Overall, holiday depression is a real thing
    • Family conflicts
    • Financial woes
    • Expectations of perfection
    • Singles watching couples get all mushy
  • Loneliness is highlighted, especially for older people who live alone and have no one available with whom to celebrate
    • People 65 and older are twice as likely to spend Christmas alone, compared to younger people
  • The loss of a family member—previous or recent—is especially painful
  • Being/fearing being left out of desirable events
  • Mistletoe invites unwanted advances
  • People with birthdays anywhere near Christmas often find the events conflated
  • Dealing with someone who has problems, like alcoholism or domestic violence
  • Wishing to skip Christmas because of other events in one’s life
  • Accessing helpful services that normally help one cope can be more difficult
  • Finding other religious festivals or holidays fade in comparison to Christmas
  • Overall, people are more likely to experience anxiety, sleep disturbances, headaches, loss of appetite, and poor concentration
  • Call rates to help hotlines spike on Christmas Eve

Environmental Downside

It’s after midnight! Wake up! Time for presents and sugar highs!
  • Massive amounts of trash going to landfills
    • Decorations
    • Single-use wrapping paper
  • Food waste
    • Imported foods enlarging your carbon footprint
  • Energy consumption
    • Traveling burning fossil fuels
    • Turning up the heat
    • Electric lights inside and outside

The End

  • Taking down/storing items for next year
  • Missing the buzz and activity
  • Realizing that nothing can be done about many things now regretted
Queen Elizabeth doesn’t take down her Christmas decorations until early February, in memory of her father’s death.

Bottom line: These are all for typical Christmases.  Consider which might be eased and which might be exacerbated in the year of COVID?

WHEN PEOPLE ARE STRESSED OR ANXIOUS

And who isn’t, these days? But a pandemic isn’t the only trigger for defense mechanisms.  For example, the death of a loved one, loss of a job, life-threatening illness, relocation, demotion . . . the possibilities are endless. So, for you reading pleasure and maybe your writing of believable characters, here’s a quick overview of ways people cope with thoughts, feelings, or acts that are too psychologically painful to tolerate.

Hulk throws the ultimate temper tantrums.

Acting Out 
Performing an extreme behavior when a person cannot otherwise express thoughts or feelings. A child’s temper tantrum would be one example. Hurting oneself is one form of acting out—cutting or burning oneself, literally banging one’s head against a wall.

Aim Inhibition
Rather than admit to failure, a person accepts a more modest goal. Think of someone who had hopes for a career in the NFL who becomes a high school coach.

If he can’t be the Flash, at least he can be Whizzer!

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Altruism
Rather than admit having no control over a situation, a person copes by helping others, perhaps compulsively. This is a person who needs to be needed and may promote helplessness in those close to him/her.

The Angel had such a strong compulsion to help everyone that Dr. Charles Xavier of the X-Men diagnosed him with “heropathy” (not an actual disease).

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Avoidance
Refusing to deal with the situation. In the current pandemic, choosing not to watch the news, read the newspapers, or respond to online postings.

Deadpool has been using running and laughing to avoid his horrible life situations since he was a child.

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Compartmentalization
Keeping different parts of one’s life in separate compartments, often with different moral guidelines. For example, someone who lies, cheats, steals, or hurts others to make a living but is unfailingly kind, helpful, and loyal to family and loved ones. Another example would be someone who enjoys extramarital sex but would never have “an affair” because that involves emotional intimacy and thus would be “cheating.”

Matt Murdock is a blind defense lawyer by day and the superhuman illegal vigilante Daredevil by night.

Compensation
Overachievement in one area because of failure in another. For example, throwing oneself into professional achievement because of failure of a marriage or intimate relationships. Or the opposite: not making it professionally and then becoming a helicopter parent.

Hartley Rathaway was born deaf and became obsessed with sound manipulation, eventually becoming the Pied Piper.

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The Amazons on Themyscira spent centuries denying the existence of any world outside their island paradise.

Denial
Basically, this is saying it isn’t so.  “There is no pandemic. It’s all a hoax—or an exaggeration.”  “It isn’t that dangerous.” Addicts often deny that they have a problem.

Displacement
Taking out frustrations, feelings, or impulses on people or objects that are less threatening. It usually applies to displaced aggression. The classic example is the boss criticizes the employee, the employee yells at his/her spouse, the spouse scolds the child, and the child kicks the dog. Of course, the person might just abuse the child or pet. Or one might smash a fist into the wall or break something.

Reed Richards “Mr. Fantastic” frequently expressed his frustrations with the world by beating his wife and children. This panel occurred immediately after such an outbreak.

Dissociation
Mentally separating oneself from one’s body or environment in order to keep an overwhelming experience at a distance. An example would be someone unhappy with his/her job has trouble concentrating at work, frequently “daydream” or finding his/her mind wandering.

Trance used her astral projection ability to escape the demonic Limbo pocket dimension and get help.

Fantasy
Retreating to a safe place in one’s mind. If one can’t find relief in fantasizing about being turned into a movie star or whatever, you can get much the same effect by binge reading or tv watching or gaming.

Michael Jon Carter hated his life in the 25th century, so he traveled back in time with stolen gadgets to live out a fantasy life as the superhero Booster Gold in the 20th century.

Humor
Seeing the funny or ironic side of any situation. This is actually a pretty adaptive way to handle stress and anxiety. For example, wearing a face mask with giant mustache attached or creating silly photo shoots of pets in quarantine.

Spiderman is a master of using bad jokes to torture his enemies.

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Dr. Manhattan is so brilliant that he loses all touch with humanity.

Intellectualization
Focusing on the problem/problematic thoughts in a cold, factual way. For example, putting the current pandemic into the context of  pandemics through the ages, how devastating they were, how they were transmitted, how they were dealt with, etc.

Passive Aggression
This is often the refuge for someone who can’t express anger or aggression directly (by scolding, hitting, etc.). For example, a teenager who is assigned a chore, such as mopping the kitchen floor, who begins by asking a gazillion questions about where to find and how to use the necessary equipment, then doesn’t sweep before starting, then mopping around the table rather than under it, and finally leaving soap scum behind.

Emma Frost generally straddles the line between passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive, depending on her allies.

Projection
Ascribing one’s unacceptable qualities, thoughts, or feelings to others. Think Donald Trump accusing reporters of being rude.

Harley Quinn projected her brainwashing and Stockholm Syndrome onto Flash and tried to “cure” him.

Rationalization
Basically, this is making excuses. You did it, you aren’t denying that you did it, but you give rational or logical reasons for it. What makes this a defense mechanism is that the stated/acknowledged reason isn’t the real motivation. For example, you pawned your mother’s wedding and engagement rings and claim you needed the money when you really wanted to hurt her—or you hated your dead father and don’t want the reminder around.

Gin Genie can create seismic shock waves in direct relation to the amount of alcohol in her system. To be a powerful superhero, she also has to be an abusive alcoholic.

Kamala Khan wants to fit in and avoid trouble but goes out of her way to stand up and confront super villains and terrorists when she shifts into Ms. Marvel.

Reaction Formation
Replacing an unacceptable feeling, impulse, or behavior with the opposite. For example, subconsciously wishing a sibling would fail and so going out of one’s way to be helpful and promote success — the perfect fan.

Regression
A person reverts to a pattern of behavior that worked when one was younger. Think thumb-sucking, crying, sulking, or temper tantrums.

Zatanna feels such guilt over using her powers to erase the memories of her enemies and friends that her powers revert to a level she had when younger.

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Repression
I like to think of this as motivated forgetting. Things that are too painful are kept out of consciousness awareness, but may have a powerful effect on behavior. For example, a victim of early childhood sexual abuse who doesn’t remember the event(s) but has difficulty becoming intimate.

Jessica Jones has years of repressed memories thanks to brainwashing and mind control.

Suppression
Much like repression, but one consciously decides not to think about or remember something. This is fairly tough to pull off!  Every time it comes to consciousness, one distracts oneself with something else. One example: having an obsessive thought running through one’s head is a way to block other scarier or more stressful thoughts from surfacing.

The Red Room training forced Natasha Romanoff to remove all empathy and mercy and become the Black Widow. She had to retrain herself to join the Avengers.

Sublimation
Act out unacceptable impulses by transforming them into a more acceptable form. For example, aggressive impulses channeled into martial arts. Someone who likes looking at naked bodies takes up figure drawing.

Batman has turned the anger and grief from watching his parents’ murder into a drive to fight crime.

Undoing
Closely related to Reaction Formation but usually on a more conscious level; trying to make up for unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors — sort of like an unstated apology. For example, a child who is jealous of a younger sibling and wishes s/he were dead might make a point of giving that sibling toys, one’s cookie, etc.

Tomorrow Woman is an android created to destroy the Justice League. She achieves artificial consciousness and sacrifices herself to destroy her creators instead.

BOTTOM LINES FOR WRITERS: Everyone uses defense mechanisms. It’s how we cope. Choose defense mechanisms for your characters that are in line with his/her character in general. So, for example, a scientist is unlikely to use denial and more likely to use intellectualization.

Although using defense mechanisms is natural, normal, and helpful on an episodic or “acute” basis, long-term or “chronic” use can lead to emotional problems because the underlying threat or anxiety is never actually addressed.

The most emotionally stable superhero out there seems to be Zephyr aka Faith Herbert, from Valiant Entertainment. We should all be as awesome as Zephyr!