As the major holidays approach, may I take this opportunity to remind you:
Keep ahead of the pain.
Keep ahead of the hunger.
Keep ahead of the Melancholy.

When someone is recovering from a serious injury or surgery, doctors often tell them, “keep ahead of the pain.” If you wait until the pain is severe before you do something about it, no amount of medication can trick your nerves into over-looking or denying the grievous injury.

Those who are dieting are well advised to keep ahead of the hunger. Eat something nutritious and low calorie. Once you begin to feel hungry, you soon perceive yourself to be starving and it is easy to binge or gorge on the first food item you see, to be insatiable for the first aroma of savory food that wafts across your path.

So it is with melancholy. You have to keep ahead of the loneliness. Prepare yourself to enjoy the wonderful warm memories of holidays past, but fortify your emotions to carry you through the memories of holidays lost.

You will want to go back. Back to the good times as you remember them.
Then you will chafe and wail inside because you cannot go back. Ever. You can go only forward.

Have a carrot stick. Take a long walk in the great outdoors. If the sun is out, you go out too. Cultivate gratitude for where you are at this very moment. Surround yourself with safe friends or family as needed. Read happy books. Watch beguiling movies, enjoy jubilant music. Read happy books beside a full spectrum lamp.
The darkness falls. Keep ahead of the melancholy.