Edict #5: Deconstruct the Whiner. Make ‘em Laugh.

By: Kendall Haney

Jr. Infectious Disease Correspondent

Repeatedly I’ve heard my Mom say of late, “we should thank the people in our lives who make us laugh.” She says that she didn’t come up with that line, but that it is such a great piece of advice it is worth keeping in mind.

I think it is worth passing on. It could be especially valuable advice if you know someone who is feeling just a little bit blue during these Christmas holidays.

There are all kinds of reasons people aren’t merry and full of cheer during the holidays. Sometimes it is because they are missing someone who was the most important person in the whole world to them. Sometimes it’s because they didn’t have the money they wished they had to get the present for someone they love the most. Sometimes it’s because they didn’t get the girl. And most frequently, I think it is because people are way lonelier than they let on…especially during the holidays.

Is any of that you?

Whether it is or isn’t, might I make suggestion to not even worry about it?

Find a way to make the people around you laugh. Some people never let on how hard they find the winter holidays, and some people do. Others are actually as merry as they come. Regardless, we can all change the day by being the person in the room that spreads the cheer.

I’ll be the first to admit that this advice isn’t always easy to follow. I try to make the people in my life laugh. But my sense of humor doesn’t always appeal to the masses. Snark plus Hopeful sometimes equals Lectured and (Rightly) Chastised.

Environment plays a key part in how funny I can be. For example, I’m not a big fan of the place we are living right now. I miss home. A lot. Not to be the whiner, but for me Christmas is best in our Minnesota home with my beautiful attic bedroom, my super comfy bed, and my disorderly disarray stacked all around me, internet working at all times. I miss cheeseburgers and pop. I even miss the smell of the cows on our dirt road.

The country my family and I are living in now doesn’t allow people to celebrate Christmas by law. People can be thrown in jail here for publicly celebrating any religion outside of the one that is legal. So you can imagine, the desert we live in during this year’s holidays is desolate and devoid of things I take for granted back home. There are plenty of service members abroad who are in the same boat I am in—no real Christmas, no Santa, just, nothing.

For them, and for all the people who don’t feel Christmas this year, my hope is that we can make them laugh. Deconstruct this whining on my part. Recognize that our world needs your humor. And when you make someone laugh—if they didn’t thank you for it—remember my edict, and let me thank you right now. You just did for them the best thing ever.

Go slather the world with cheer you guys…you’re doing the right thing to spill it everywhere, and make the biggest mess possible.

Merry Christmas and May God Bless You.

(image credit: http://www.guychurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/santa_claus.jpg)

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