For many people Christmas is a time of inflated expectations followed by deep disappointment and depression.

The Other Side of Christmas. By Rosemary I. Patterson, Ph.D. For many people Christmas is the dance of the sugarplum fairies or the Nutcracker Suite. For others though, Christmas is a time of inflated expectations followed by deep disappointment and depression. I know. I was the only child of a war widow whose mental handicap often interfered with her ability to manage her meagre income. As a result I am personally familiar with poverty. My mother's Christmas role in her large family (eight brothers and sisters) was to provide and cook the Christmas dinner each year, a task she always took delight in doing and like a modern day Scrooge employee somehow financed the turkey and the myriads of foodstuffs necessary for the event. My other much more affluent aunts, uncles and cousins would always somehow manage to arrive late but that never deprived my mother of her happiness. Her Christmas dinner was the one event of the year that earned her praise instead of the constant putdowns and criticism that dogged the rest of her years interactions with her siblings. For you see my mother was regarded as a joke and the recounting of her many failings and even victimizations was the theme of most of her family exchanges. As for me I looked forward with great expectations to the possibility of gifts of clothes or trendy toys that would enable me to at least appear to be on an even playing field with that of my childhood acquaintances. But alas, by the time my aunts and uncles had purchased their own children's presents there must have been little left over for the niece that they supposed would likely never amount to much anyway. I distinctly remember receiving a tea towel from one esteemed aunt and a quarter being placed in my hand by an uncle. But all my mother would remember is the thanks and praise she would rather grudgingly be given for providing the annual dinner. At least my relatives had manners if not understanding. So by New Years and with no more presents arriving at the door I would have to resign myself to another school term of socks held up by elastic bands, holes in soles of shoes stuffed with Kleenex, and clothes so old that the grime could not be removed. Embarassment over my total lack of new toys caused me to play alone in the patches of empty lots and woods that could still be found in the city at that time. I'm sure I was not alone back then in the rise and fall of great expectations for Christmas nor are there a lack of disadvantaged children now, particularly with societal tolerence of even family homelessness. So on the days before Christmas or any other time for that matter if you are aware of a disadvantaged relative or child for whatever reasons perhaps you could do something that will ameliorate the inevitable crash of their high hopes for the season.