Here are some tips specifically for beating depression:
1. It has been said that depression is “anger turned inward.” Many times it is just that. So the antidote is to turn outward…..focus on what you can do for others. No matter how bad your life predicament is at the moment, there are others who are needier.
2. Instead of spending tons of money and time opening gifts this year, how about if the family makes a holiday feast and delivers it to a welfare family? Or to an old person who is lonely and has no one to share the day with. Or forego gifts for yourselves, and use that money to buy gifts and deliver them to terminally ill children in a hospital. Or perform for them, if you are musically talented.
3. Allow your children to come up with ideas of what you could do that is focused on giving to others. You might be surprised with what they come up with.
4. Share your favorite holiday memory with one another. Then recreate something about it that made it so special. I’ll bet it didn’t involve money or excess…..usually it is the simple things we remember more than anything else.
5. Spend the whole day together in bed in your pajamas watching classic Christmas movies…..what moves us about this films has little to do with presents.
6. Make gifts this year. Write poems, calligraphy them and frame them. Or write a song and perform it. Or write your family memoir together. Make a home video for a time capsule of your family: “This was our no-wrapped gift year where we refused to be anything but happy anyway!”
7. Give each other make-overs.
8. If you live near mountains or the beach, spend the day there with a picnic.
9. Changing the location or dynamic of your day will definitely shift your depressive dynamic. If you are doing something physically different, your mood must change as well!