{"id":1317308,"date":"2019-12-17T22:36:01","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T05:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/purcell-column-why-christmas-nostalgia-is-good-for-us\/"},"modified":"2019-12-17T22:36:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T05:36:01","slug":"purcell-column-why-christmas-nostalgia-is-good-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/purcell-column-why-christmas-nostalgia-is-good-for-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Purcell column: Why Christmas nostalgia is good for us"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I indulge more deeply in Christmas nostalgia with every passing year, but it turns out that doing so is a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNostalgia,\u201d according to Merriam-Webster, is \u201ca wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for the return to some past period or irrecoverable condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time is certainly irrecoverable. I wish I\u2019d known, when I was child, that time would go by so incredibly fast \u2013 which makes me now long for my past.<\/p>\n

I remember vividly one Christmastime Saturday when I was 5 or 6. It was uncharacteristically warm for Pittsburgh \u2013 so warm, my mother opened our living room windows, allowing a fresh breeze in.<\/p>\n

I sat by those windows, waiting for my hero \u2013 my father \u2013 to return with our Christmas tree. Trapped in a kid\u2019s time warp, minutes ticked by like hours.<\/p>\n

In future years, I\u2019d be his sidekick as we shopped for the perfect tree. But it was too early for that yet.<\/p>\n

Eventually, our white Ford station wagon pulled into the driveway, a big, thick evergreen tied to the roof. As my father got out and began untying it, I ran outside to help.<\/p>\n

He was in his early 30s then, his hair black as coal. He stood nearly 6-foot-2, a powerful man. In an era when children argued that \u201cmy dad can beat up your dad,\u201d my dad could.<\/p>\n

I marveled as he set the tree on the living room platform like it was a stick. Then he kissed my mother, as he did every single time he walked through our front door.<\/p>\n

This memory still fills me with a deep sense of security. How blessed I have been to be part of a large family, imperfect as it was and still is, with my parents together, doing their best to sacrifice for and love their children.<\/p>\n

I re-experience the deep sense of the security they gave my sisters and me when I watch \u201cA Charlie Brown Christmas,\u201d \u201cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas!\u201d and \u201cRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.\u201d<\/p>\n

All were huge childhood events, which my family gathered around the television to watch with Snyder of Berlin potato chips and French onion dip, a special treat in our home.<\/p>\n

For years, according to Dr. Max Pemberton in the Daily Mail, psychologists warned against such nostalgic indulgence.<\/p>\n

But Constantine Sedikides, a Southampton University professor, says they got it wrong. Sedikides, who researches the effects of nostalgia, argues that nostalgia can comfort people, helping them connect and cope with adversity.<\/p>\n

Nostalgia, writes Pemberton, can \u201cimbue us with resilience by reminding us that we possess a store of powerful memories and experiences that are deeply intertwined with our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scratchy old Christmas albums, luminaria lining the streets, Christmas Eve gatherings with our longtime next-door neighbors the Kriegers, bittersweet memories of so many people no longer here \u2013 this is the nostalgia that holds more power over me each Christmas season.<\/p>\n

It makes me hold doors open for strangers, give more to those in need, try to be more understanding and gracious toward those with whom I disagree.<\/p>\n

These are the benefits of Christmas nostalgia.<\/p>\n

May you and your family \u2013 and our country as a whole \u2013 enjoy an abundance of those benefits this year.<\/p>\n

Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I indulge more deeply in Christmas nostalgia with every passing year, but it turns out that doing so is a good thing. \u201cNostalgia,\u201d according to Merriam-Webster, is \u201ca wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for the return to some past period or irrecoverable condition.\u201d Time is certainly irrecoverable. I wish I\u2019d known, when I was child, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 08:27:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}