Finding Calm After the Holiday Storm

Ever felt the rush and then the crash after the holiday season? This episode of Mental Health-ish takes you on a personal journey through the whirlwind of Christmas madness, from the exhilarating highs of gift shopping and gingerbread house building to the post-festivity fatigue that hits hard. 

But wait, there's more! Just when everything seemed to be going perfectly, an unexpected scam turned into a lesson on staying vigilant during the holiday season. I'll share essential tips on protecting both your mental and emotional well-being, and why post-holiday self-care is more important than ever. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hello everyone, welcome back to Mental Health-ish. It is the day after Christmas as I am recording this and I can't help but feel just so relieved that Christmas is finally over. As much as I loved it and as fun as it was this year because I actually had Emma with me I'm just glad that it's over. I don't know about you guys, but just the days I mean month and days leading up to Christmas are so stressful. Not only are we rushing to get gifts and like finding the you know the perfect gift and going shopping and dealing with holiday crowds and traffic everywhere. It's a frenzy. It's basically a frenzy, right Like it just feels so rushed to just get to Christmas. And there's just so much adrenaline that week leading up to Christmas and I feel even like for myself, the two days leading up to Christmas were crazy. They were fun, but they were crazy.

Speaker 1: 1:14

I had Emma with me, so we did a lot of movies, we played a lot of games, we did a lot of activities and even on Christmas Eve I felt like we there's just so much pressure to like make it a fun day, and not that I didn't want it to be a fun day, like I enjoyed, you know, hanging out with her and doing all these things, but still it just takes up so much energy. So we were making gingerbread houses, we were coloring, we were singing Christmas songs, we were dancing and just doing like so many different things. Right, we stayed up till midnight and opened presents all night Christmas Eve. And I mean I also added some stress to myself because I bought us tickets to the Polar Express train ride. So we did that on Christmas Eve during the morning. So then I was editing our video for YouTube, because I've been posting a lot of experiences on YouTube, so then I stayed up doing that.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So, anyhow, I feel like yesterday, for Christmas Day, when I finally had to come back to work, it finally kicked in. Like all the tiredness from Christmas, all the energy draining from the past two days, I feel like everything just hit me at once and I felt so exhausted. Yesterday, christmas day, I was just like coffee didn't even help. I got some coffee and it still didn't wake me up. So I feel like everything just kind of hits us on that day, christmas, the day after Christmas, like everyone's just kind of emotionally recovering from the holidays and all the Christmas shopping, all the Christmas, everything, christmas energy. I feel like it's yeah, it's crazy. And so during the holiday season, as much as everything is like so much fun and everything or not fun like, just remember to take a few moments or a few hours, a few days, if you can, to recover from all the craziness and holiday energy sucking that has been happening. I feel like all my energy was like drained out of me. Remember to just take some time to recover yourself, recover your mental health, recharge your energy and yeah, but yeah. I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Speaker 1: 3:45

I was having fun and then I got this email. So I almost got scammed on Christmas Eve and that was annoying. I literally was having. I think I was in the middle of building a gingerbread house. I want to say, when I checked my email and I got an email from the Marriott hotels, it was a booking confirmation I was like what the heck? Like booking confirmation?

Speaker 1: 4:15

At first I thought it was a scam, like an email scam. You know how you get emails, like fake emails that say, oh, you know, order confirmation or blah, blah, blah. And it's a scam like to get you to click like the link in the email or and like put in your personal information, things like that. So at first, when I saw the email or and like put in your personal information, things like that. So at first, when I saw the email confirmation for this hotel booking, I thought it was a scam and I was like I'm not going to click on it and, you know, put in my personal info and things like that. So what I did was I just went directly to the Marriott Hotels website, like separately, like on my phone, and I did this because I remembered, I think a while back we had taken, we had took a trip somewhere. I don't remember if it was when we went to Niagara Falls, I don't know, but I know that I've booked hotels through Marriott before, so I know I do have an account.

Speaker 1: 5:11

So, although I thought it was like complete spam, like I also remember like, hey, well, I do have an account. So like what if someone you know hacked into my account and like book the room and a lot of these websites nowadays to like when you're booking and buying things like it has you save your credit card info and things like that on there? So I was like, oh hell, no. Like what if someone's using, like my credit card and you know they hacked into my Marriott account this account that I that is forgotten and booked a room or I don't know. So I went into their actual website, I signed into my account, you know, with my email, and I went to my booking history and I found a booking on Christmas Eve. There was a booking for two rooms, two different rooms, at a Marriott hotel, and I think it was Minnesota somewhere or Minneapolis, I don't know, but it was somewhere outside of California that I've never been to. And so I was like what the heck? Like it's actually real, Like someone really did book a room, you know, with my account.

Speaker 1: 6:20

And so I went ahead and canceled the two reservations and I changed my password to that Marriott booking thing and I also went to, like the payment section where it has, like the saved cards or whatnot. Thankfully it was an old card anyway, so it would have gotten declined, but still, you know. So I deleted all the cards off the account and, yeah, I was like oh my gosh. And then after that I got the cancellation emails in my email and then after that I got a sorry, we were unable to process your travel insurance, you know, request or whatnot. So I'm like these people like also try to purchase travel insurance so that they could get like some kind of reimbursement or something. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 7:09

But I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe people are seriously scamming people during the holidays and so just be as if we didn't need something else to stress out about during the holidays in general, or in general, be careful with scammers. Be careful with scammers during the holidays, with scammers. Be careful with scammers during the holidays. People are hungry, people are, you know, wanting to be festive and wanting to do things right, go to stay places, I don't know. But just be very careful. And just a quick reminder scammers are out there. Scammers are lurking. So make sure. If you have any old accounts that you have forgotten about that may have your credit card information stored or identifying information stored, just go in there and delete it. If you're not going to use the account no more, delete it, or at least delete your credit cards off of the account, because, wow, I was about to be scammed on Christmas Eve, but thankfully I was able to cancel it. So, anywho, happy holidays.

Speaker 1: 8:15

Christmas is done, new Year's is coming up. Next week New Year's Eve and the New Year, so I'm really excited to just get started on a clean slate and just kind of think about what my goals are for the next year. Let me know if you have like any type of ritual that you follow for the new year and how you get yourself organized. But other than that, thank you for listening to this episode. Remember to subscribe, like and share. And yeah, thank you guys. So much. I hope you all had a great Christmas. Talk to you soon.