The following podcast is a dear media production.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Don't Think, the podcast for anyone who gets

emotionally destabilized at the smell of like a pine candle or,

you know, the first Christmas song you hear in November. Tis the season, aka the time to experience,

that annual mix of joy and depression and nostalgia and panic and longing and whatever other

emotion you feel when you hear Mariah Carey in a grocery store

at 8 a.m. I don't know why she's always screaming that song. Anyway, I don't know what it is

about Christmas, but every single year, I swear it hits me like a psychological jump scare. And you

think you'd get used to it, but no, you don't. Maybe because it's

slightly different every year. December 1st, I'm like, yay, pretty lights, gingerbread house, hot

cocoa, the season of giving. And then something inside me goes, wait, why does my childhood

feel dead? Why am I suddenly grieving the concept of time?

So if any of this resonates, you're in the right place for today.

And I sort of wanted to give you guys just like a holiday hug for this episode.

It's going to be short and sweet because I, as a new podcaster, have been informed that people tend to fall off around the holidays

and not listen to their favorite shows, which of course this is one of your favorite shows.

So I didn't want to, you know, bore you with a really long episode that you may not listen to

anyway, but I wanted to give you a little something. In case you're struggling a little bit

during the holidays, if there's any place, any podcast you can come to where you can expect to get

a little validation for struggling during the holidays, you've come to the right place. It's right here.

So today we're talking about Christmas nostalgia, or as I like to call it, extra special holiday depression.

And I love to say, oh, this isn't talked about enough, but I actually do think this is one thing that gets talked about a lot.

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