By Editorial Board
When was the last time you felt pure joy around a holiday season? Whether or not you’re someone who celebrates, when November arrives, it feels as if the school bus that we’re trapped within is rounding the corner towards home, and we see warmth and relaxation in the near future. When December is around the corner, we know we’ll soon be among family and excellent food, filled with the soul-replenishing feeling of days stretching out in front of us, occupied with nothing but what we choose to do.
This is the ideal that many students likely harbour in their imaginations during the last stretch of exam season, holding tightly to holiday hopes as they leap over boulder after boulder of exams, deadlines, and mind-numbing work. In our younger years, perhaps we saw these wishes materialize in our holiday realities. Whether our Decembers were snowy or just another hot month in Singapore, they might have possessed a little sparkle at the edges. Perhaps there seemed to be no end to this magic, until January arrived and we got back on the bus, but this time in all eagerness to reunite with friends.
It’s holiday season — a time of happiness, reunion, and cheer! Yet lately, it doesn’t feel so for many. We used to be excited, listening to Christmas music until death, but the holidays now seem a bit monotonous, grey, and a little more meaningless each year.
Childhood Wonder
When you were a child, everything felt magical, as if the world was your oyster and you were about to eat it. However, as we grow older, we begin to lose our spark and imagination. Soon, our childhood memories will become nothing but a distant friend, and all the joy we have from revisiting those memories, nothing more than nostalgia. Being caught in the crossroads between childhood and adulthood, we would like to be as free as adults, and we might even look to be adults, but inside we still hold onto fragments of our childhood. It can be difficult to navigate this period of becoming, but how we struggle to preserve our inner youthful joys, is one of the most important things in this journey. That’s why it’s important we take the time to recognise whether we feel that our cherished festivals, lengthy summers and winter breaks are losing their magic and if the new year feels more like a burden than a cause for celebration. This is how we can stay unbroken, emerging stronger from our struggles.
Stress
We are all stressed to some extent by responsibilities. Family,social life, and school all put a strain on our time and energy, and making us feel jaded. Who wouldn’t be tired and stressed out after having 5 summatives in one week? Universities are expecting more and more every year, so we naturally have to adapt — only to be waitlisted. Moreover, we must ensure we’re performing to a high level across all the different domains of our lives — having to balance family life, social relationships, extracurriculars, and a ton of other stuff — so the thought of the holidays is typically not on our priority list… when we have time, there’s usually something available to take it away from us! Even thinking about the holidays, as another task on our list, is stressful. Consider this: buying gifts for friends and family that they would like it certainly puts our brain into overdrive, even though it’s fun to see their smiles. If you’re in IB DP Y2? You’ve spent your holidays toiling for mock exams. Looking at these factors, it is understandable why students might not feel so excited for the Winter holidays anymore.
Can we still be happy?
Short answer, yes. Long answer, still yes.
We know that the above sounds like the holidays are now just filled with gloom, despair, nihilism, and doom, but we can still make the most out it! Stress does get to the best of us, but it’s important to spend time with family and friends, especially as their “pit-stop” in Singapore, or your global travels, nears to an end. Additionally, try do something meaningful during the season. Donate to charity, do service, or maybe do something simple as giving your friends gifts! It’s the time of giving and receiving, and it wouldn’t be complete without giving other people holiday cheer. This will lift up your own mood.
So TL;DR: while the above tells you why the holidays don’t feel special anymore, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel happy during the holidays! Next time you’re with your family, consider our tips 🙂