Being truthful can sometimes be politically incorrect but it can also be helpful and even liberating.  Today I want to share a dark truth about Holidays in America (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, add your own).  I also want to offer a few tough-minded guidelines that will help you get through them.

Truth: The media loves to describe the Holidays as full of fun, family, good food, and even love.  The fact is, however, for many people, the Holidays suck.

For far too many people, the Holidays are about the following:

1. Having to hang out for endless hours with dysfunctional family members while trying to contain your anger, hurt, disagreement, disappointment, and deep-seated urge to strangle or maim someone.
2. Spending money on gifts for people you hardly know, don’t love, and wish would disappear.
3. Eating fattening food until your body swells and hurts and then hating yourself for gaining 5 to 15 pounds of unwanted body fat.
4. Watching other people seem to enjoy being with their happy families while you feel short-changed and left out and somehow defective.
5. Attending uninspiring religious services with bad music and boring sermons.
6. Wondering if you are spiritually or psychologically broken because you don’t get into the “spirit”.
7. Getting depressed and feeling like you want to hide under the bed until said Holiday is in the distant past.

I could go on with my list but it is depressing me.  You get the point.

Question: Is there a way to get through all this insanity?  I have a few ideas that have worked for me.

Dr. A’s Guidelines for Surviving the Holidays

1. Spend as little time with family as you can.  They probably don’t like you anyway so staying away will not make it worse.
2. Make a date with friends to do something you all enjoy.  It does not have to be related to the Holiday at hand.  It could be beer and Monopoly.
3. Get real and expect to gain a few pounds.  Enjoy putting them on and commit to a weight loss program at the end of the Holidays.
4. Stop imagining that most families are full of love and fun during the Holidays.  Most of them are not.  They fake it.  In truth, Holidays are usually very stressful for most families.
5. If you are even a little spiritually inclined, then get creative and proactive about doing something spiritual during the Holidays.  Don’t be passive and wait to feel bad or left out.  Make a plan that will work for you.
6. Go out of your way to do something caring for someone during the Holidays.  I guarantee this will make you feel better.

Finally, hold your head up, look around, and pay attention.  Another politically incorrect person may be nearby and in need of a hug.  Go for it.

[Ed. note: Dr. Matthew Anderson is an author (The Prayer Diet), counselor and national columnist/expert on weight loss, motivation, self-management and relationships.To purchase his powerful and cutting edge 1 hour CD, The Worst Addiction Ever, click here.]

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