Post-Christmas "Blahs"

Have you ever noticed how deeply people's spirits dip after the holidays? It's like they were elated to celebrate Christmas and New Year's, but now that we are a full three weeks into 2006, the thrill is gone. I wonder why that is. Is it because we build up the holidays as a magical, enchanting time of year - full of wonder and possibility, but then January 2 rolls around and the festive twinkle in the air goes AWOL. No one walks with a spring in their step. We just simply try to make it to the next holiday.

What a defeated way to live - from holiday to holiday. Living like that just seems depressing and worthless - I mean, Christ calls us to live lives of empowerment, not entertainment. It seems that living for the "high" of the holiday (and I use that term loosely around Valentine's, St. Patrick's, and other greeting-card-fueled days) would lead to bottoming out during the off-peak times, with the possibility of listlessness and feelings of impotence during the stretch from MLK to VD (almost a whole month!!).

This phenomenon was demonstrated clearly to me last year when Debbie and I went to Fredricksburg for our anniversary in early January. I want to preface this story with the fact that Fredricksburg is a very popular tourist destination in Texas, lots of local color, lots of history, and many, many, many great B&Bs. We only stayed for a short while, but we wanted to soak up as much of the local culture as we could before heading to San Antonio for a few days, but half (if not more) of the places we had picked out to visit during our stay were CLOSED for at least the next 10-14 days! We called a nice restaurant in town to have dinner - closed for another week. We stopped by a chocolate factory for a sample - closed for another 10 days. We walked up and down the main drag in town - at least one out of every 3 doors had a "closed until..." sign on it. We ended up having dinner at a local Italian restaurant and there were only two other tables occupied by patrons during our 90 minute stay. On a brighter note, the B&B we stayed at was WONDERFUL - the owner served a delicious breakfast in the morning and was a great conversationalist. I would recommend her establishment to anyone who needs a place to stay in Fredricksburg. One caveat remains - go during the summertime, much more to do/see/visit and the peaches are in season too!

Ok, all that to say that I hope you are not suffering from the "blahs" this January while you wait for the next holiday "high". May you realize that we were meant to live for more than just what this life offers - we are meant to go beyond and to live in eternal relationship with Christ.

Grace&Peace