Santa Maria Therapist Deals With Post Holiday Blues Patients

For Dr. Lynda Gantt, a Marriage and Family Therapist in Santa Maria, January can be a busy month.

“If you think about it, we put so much preparation into getting ready for the holidays,” she said. “Then everything is back to normal, it’s like oh dear what am i gonna do with my life now?”

She said an increase in clients come in. They are wanting to know how to deal with the post holiday blues.

“Yea cause it’s over with,” she said. “What do you look forward to then?”

“The gifts, the gift wrapping, the Christmas tree, decorations, you know, company coming, dinner, all this stuff that we do to get ready and in two hours it’s all over with.”

For Stacia Lopez, it has been hard letting go of Christmas, and she said she understand why people come in to visit Dr. Gantt.

“We took down our tree, but all our wreaths and our lights and our nativity scene all that is still up,” said Lopez.

“You don’t feel like you’re in a house, you feel like you’re in a home when you have the Christmas decorations up.”

Dr. Gantt said if depression sets in after the Holiday season, there are some things you can do.

She said it’s important to remember who you are outside of Christmas.

Take some time for yourself, and most importantly remember that Christmas will return again next year.