A quick warning that the following program contains material that may not be suitable for all audiences,

including references to suicide and death.

Tis the season for dogs wearing bow ties,

for warm tidings and cute turtlenecks, for good cheer,

okay food, it's the holidays. I'm Nora McNeerney and this is

Happy-ish, holidays from the American Public Media Podcast, terrible. Thanks for asking.

That's the name of our podcast and each week on our show we ask people to give honest answers

to the question, how are you? And this is a season that could use a little more honesty.

With all the ho-ho-ho's and family get together, it's an all the well-meaning co-workers.

This is somebody who doesn't visit our office very often, but you know when he does,

he's very, he's a very friendly guy, I don't have any problem with him.

But he walked in and I was sitting in my office, my two co-workers were in

the main waiting area, setting up the office Christmas tree, and he just said, hey, what are you doing?

Why aren't you participating? He wasn't being unkind about it, so I just sort of joked around with

him and just said, you know, I'm just not going to do it this year or whatever it was that I said.

Look, you know this moment, some co-worker, you don't know very well, just wants you to lighten up

and enjoy and you're sitting there thinking, dude, can you not? A couple weeks later, we had a

Christmas party on our floor and he was sitting directly across from me and brought up the fact that

I had not participated in the office Christmas tree decorating. And he was sort of teasing me about it.

And now it was at the point where there were, you know, 10 or 15 other people in the room.

And I didn't really feel comfortable sort of shutting him down at that point, so I just sort of sat there and

took it. If for any reason you are not in the holiday spirit and Lauren here is not,

...