Christmas Guide for
The Manic Depressive

It's December. There is no turning back now. The juggernaut of capitalism is rolling toward each of us and there is no escape to safety. You can only shore up your defenses and try to minimize the damage.

Christmas is a celebration of useless spending and "spoiled child" desires wrapped in an altruistic and religious package that succeeds in equating the amount of love you have with the dollars you spend. For a manic depressive bipolar like myself it is the perfect storm. Each year I think experience will help me avoid the highs and lows or the year before, but the Christmas capitalistic campaign is well organized and the propaganda is pervasive.

To be clear I am not talking about the religious aspects of Christmas. The birth of Jesus, the star of Bethlehem, the wise men, the shepards in the field, the biblical narrative is a great story. I love to hear it told over and over. But the state of our country and the status of our economy does not depend on the attendance of that yearly church event. And a three foot light up plastic baby Jesus on display in the front yard does not inspire me. Christianity and capitalism make very strange "manger fellows".

As a manic depressive child to be told that some guy in a red suit would give me anything I wanted, and bring it to my house on a specific December night was the highest of highs. There were weeks of anticipation for the toy of my dreams, leading to a miserable Christmas night trying to make myself sleep but too excited to do so. Knowing that Santa would only come when I was asleep, and not being able to sleep because Santa was coming is the definition of a manic depressive.

Of course with all the preparation and all the angst-measured excitement for the day, it is after all only one day, actually only a few hours of a day. It is over about as quickly as it begins and for me the actual ownership of the worlds greatest toy never matched up to my imagination and anticipation. The let down and the lack of sleep from the days before would send me on a resounding crash.

Needless to say the past affects my perspective of Christmas present. I hope for a different outcome but just before Thanksgiving the same songs, the same colors, the same characters, the same push to give (and get) the perfect gift, tend to create the same experience. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting a different result? Well, there you go..

I love being with my family, but they are spread between, New York, Florida, Dallas, Los Angeles and Berlin. Unlike Santa it is impossible to be everywhere in one night.

And so it begins 23 days until Crashmas.
As you were,
Jay