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Posts Tagged ‘Hannukah’

Lots of Help for your Head this Holiday Season

December 8th, 2008

The December Headache and Migraine Disease Blog Carnival is posted today at Somebody Heal Me.  The indomitable Diana Lee has assembled another great line-up of posts for your reading pleasure, designed to help you make it through the holidays with a smile on your face and a song in your heart… in other words, the theme is “Maximizing Your Enjoyment of the Holiday Season”.

Generally speaking, a blog carnival is a collection of links to a variety of a blogs on a central topic. The Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival has been created to provide both headache patients and people who blog about headaches with unique opportunities to share ideas on topics of particular interest and importance to us.

This is the one year anniversary issue of the Headache and Migraine Disease Blog Carnival, so please head on over to Somebody Heal Me for some good holiday reading!

– Megan

Hannukah image courtesy of skpy/Scott; Christmas image courtesy of Randy son of Robert; Kwanzaa image courtesy of soulchristmas.

Tags: blog carnival, Christmas, Hannukah, headache, holidays, Kwanzaa, migraine, Weblogs
Posted in Managing, Weblogs | Comments (0)

Holidays don’t have to Hurt your Head

December 1st, 2008

How was your Thanksgiving? We just got back from a very relaxed five day trip to my sister’s house, where the extended family descends for an annual Thanksgiving extravaganza. There are a lot of reasons to love it. My sister and brother-in-law and nephews are warm and welcoming and they pull out all the stops to accommodate everyone. Danny and I bake pies and cook some side dishes and load them in the car with ourselves, our kids and our luggage, maybe some fruit and wine, and off we go. We don’t have to clean the house (not that it couldn’t use it). We get a mini-vacation from the worries of our daily life. Their house is set up so that even with a crowd, the upstairs rooms are pretty sound-proof, so if a Migraineur needs a quiet retreat, there is one.

I am very thankful at Thanksgiving time, for the loving and accepting, funny, intelligent and interesting family I have, the fun times and wonderful food we share. I have many blessings to count. I have never managed to travel to this particular fest, however, without at least a little pang of wishing it were different. I wish I could host an event like this at my house. I wish that I could host any event of more than a handful of people for more than a few hours, without getting a Migraine. I wish that my home was orderly, organized and clean to the point that preparing for overnight guests wasn’t such a huge task.

The internet and the newspapers right now are full of articles on how to have happy holidays on a shoe-string, or how to enjoy the holidays without the stress, and I don’t need to re-invent the wheel. Over at My Migraine Connection you can read Teri Robert’s interview with Marcia Cross on Holiday Parties with Migraines. Coming up on December 8, the December Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival will be posted at Somebody Heal Me on the topic of “Maximizing Your Enjoyment of the Holiday Season,” and there will be lots of good reading on the topic, I’m sure! (If you’d like to submit a post for the carnival, the deadline is the midnight Friday, December 5th, and you can submit your post at this link at Somebody Heal Me.)

What I’m here to say is – the holidays don’t have to hurt your head. Like me, you may find there are things you have to give up. I conceded Thanksgiving to my sister years ago, since she loves doing it so much, but for most of the past 6 years we have hosted a big holiday weekend at our house around New Year’s. We won’t be doing that this year. Having that many people in my house, and that much noise, for an extended period of time, is a whole series of Migraine triggers for me. I end up missing a chunk of the celebration, I’m not much of a hostess, my family feels bad for me, and I’m in pain that often lasts days after everyone leaves.

I was surprised to find myself in tears when I told everyone we would not be hosting this year. It’s not like it was unexpected! The truth is that it is hard to give up on something we want to do. What we can do is to look below the thing itself, and see what is important to us, and how else we can express that.

When you look at your holiday season, think about what is important to you, and how you can express that without hurting your head. One holiday party may be much better than five. You may not have to wear yourself out to cook huge meals – choose one or two things that are important to you or your loved ones. The quantity of toys will mean less to your kids than the time you take to stop and play with them.

I gave up trying to be Martha Stewart years ago, but as my Migraines became more frequent I have had to give up more. So where we used to make six kinds of Christmas cookies, maybe we will make two. Where we used to have 18 people for a holiday weekend with a big dinner, we will ask a smaller group to join us for just dinner on Christmas day. Where we used to climb on the roof and hang lights, we light a few windows. In our family we have always celebrated Hannukah and Christmas, since we have a mixed background, but several years ago we became clear that our kids didn’t need gifts every night of Hannukah and under the tree and in their stockings!  We buy less, and light the candles to remember our heritage and hope in the darkness, rather than as a reason for eight more gifts.

Festivity is great fun, but it can also be addicting. Advertising tells us to do more, buy more. Many people find that however much they spend and do, they still fall short of the “perfect” holiday they imagine in their mind’s eye. As Migraineurs, we need to go easy on ourselves. Whether or not you’re hurting financially this season, you don’t need the added stress of worrying about whether you have bought or done enough. A little can go a long way. What is most important to you about the holidays? Is it time with loved ones? An expression of peace and hope? Find ways to express what is important to you, that don’t hurt your head. Remember to get regular sleep, eat regularly, avoid your Migraine triggers, and enjoy the joys of the season!

Peace!

– Megan

Sliced turkey image coutesy of Roland Tanglao; advent candles image courtesy of Per Ola Wiberg; menorah image courtesy of Andrew Ratto.

Tags: Christmas, Hannukah, holidays, managing life with migraine, Migraine triggers, Migraines, Stress, Thanksgiving
Posted in Managing, Musings, Tips & Techniques, Weblogs | Comments (3)