When your due date is close to Christmas, what most people won’t tell you is that you’ll spend the holidays at home or in bed, declining invitations for get-togethers to prioritize recovery and get accustomed with your new life as a mom.
It’s not the same for all moms, but this was exactly the picture of my holidays last year. It felt so different and isolating that I couldn’t name my emotion from the unusualness of it all. When the holidays were over, I found exactly the right words to describe it: holiday blues.
Here’s how you try to beat that sinking feeling this festive season:
If only I could go back in time, I would have put all my emotions out in the open. I chose to keep the strange melancholy to myself then because I felt guilty about not feeling all jolly and festive even when my baby is finally beside me. I thought that I was supposed to feel overjoyed all the time because it was our first Christmas with her. As it turned out, I was also simultaneously feeling blue about not having the Christmas I used to have. The feeling bugged me for days on end. I think I would have felt more at ease if I became honest about it.
Because my baby was only a month old during the holidays, we were strongly advised to bring her out in the morning for some sun. Fortunately, it was also a time for me to get some Vitamin D! The feeling of the morning sun on my skin did some wonders to combat my feeling cold and blue when I’m just inside the house.
It’s true that Christmases won’t be the same the way they used to be for me and my family, so might as well start new holiday traditions to welcome the changes! To mark my baby’s first Christmas, I bought red onesies that say, “My First Christmas” online and a pair of red socks with stuffed reindeers on them. I used this feeling to bridge the gap between what used to be and what is, and I’m glad that despite what I was feeling then, we have cute family pictures to look back on.
The bright side of feeling holiday blues is that the feeling doesn’t linger all the time. So while you’re in the middle of a happy moment, be completely in it. In my case, my husband prepared an all-Filipino Christmas spread of stuffed inihaw na bangus, caldereta, lumpiang shanghai, and buko pandan and we ate our heart out while our baby was asleep during the Noche Buena. It was an alone time for us, a first-time Noche Buena as new parents.
I missed the gathering on my maternal side of the family, so when my cousins from my father’s side asked for a place to hold our annual get-together, we welcomed them here in our humble home instead. My parents volunteered to look after my then one-month-old daughter as I join my cousins eating, then I rush back to her in the room for nursing. Despite the new schedule, I had time to join my cousins for photos, chit chat, and board games as usual.
It’s always quite oxymoronic to be told to celebrate small, as celebration always connotes big and grand. However, small things that others will not notice should be honored, too. For example, last December, my daughter’s sleeping time would mean a taste of alone time for me. Since I am finally allowed to have coffee then, I would sit quietly on the dining table and enjoy my hot cup of coffee, feeling grateful for all the things I have for the season and beyond.
On the other hand, I didn’t force myself to be in a celebratory mood when all my body wanted to do was rest. So, I just let myself be and chose to be grateful for the refreshed and recharged feeling after I get my much-needed sleep.