Preventing Depression during the Holidays

• http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/25-ways-find-joy-balance-during-holidays#1
• Depression
• Above is the Link to the entire article. The most devastating event would be to loose a loved one around the holidays. Very often it is a high point that a person partakes in, only to end up taking their lives ones these memorable happy times have occured. Please be very observant, and be there for your friends and relatives this Christmas in a deep and meaningful way..  

25 Ways to Find Joy and Balance During the Holidays

Feeling down during the holidays can be tough.

By R. Morgan Griffin

From the WebMD Archives

Feeling down during the holidays can be tough, especially since you seem so out of step with the world. Everyone else seems to be beaming, ruddy-cheeked, bursting with holiday spirit. You’re feeling wretched and exhausted.
But here’s something to cheer you up the next time you’re stuck in a room of revelers at a holiday party: Plenty of them are probably unhappy, too.
“I think a lot of people would say that the holidays are the worst time of the year,” says Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “They’re just straight up miserable, and that’s not only for people with clinical depression.”
So if the family gatherings, the endless parties, and the shopping get you down, you’re hardly alone. But people with depression -- or who have had depression in the past -- need to be especially careful when coping with holiday stress. While it might take some conscious effort on your part, you can reduce stress -- and maybe even find some holiday joy, too. Here are some tips.

Finding the Holiday Spirit: Emotions

1. Keep your expectations modest. Don’t get hung up on what the holidays are supposed to be like and how you’re supposed to feel. If you’re comparing your holidays to some abstract greeting card ideal, they’ll always come up short. So don’t worry about holiday spirit and take the holidays as they come.
2. Do something different. This year, does the prospect of the usual routine fill you with holiday dread rather than holiday joy? If so, don’t surrender to it. Try something different. Have Thanksgiving at a restaurant. Spend Christmas day at the movie theater. Get your family to agree to skip gifts and instead donate the money to a charity.
3. Lean on your support system. If you’ve been depressed, you need a network of close friends and family to turn to when things get tough, says David Shern, PhD, president and CEO of Mental Health America in Alexandria, Va. So during the holidays, take time to get together with your support team regularly -- or at least keep in touch by phone to keep yourself centered.