With Thanksgiving ending and December coming, comes the mad MAD rush of Christmas shopping and parties. Every year, I stress way out because of all the people surrounding me 24/7. It also doesn't help that my birthday is thrown into the mix.

I try not to lose my sanity each year. And each year, I barely escape alive. Not only does the stress of holiday mingling and shopping get to me, but the holidays also remind me about what I lack. Family members and accomplishments. A love life.

Maybe it's also that Daylight Savings Time has ended; maybe it's also all the holiday eating. But I just feel tired all the time. Right when it gets dark, it's my time to curl into bed and fall asleep. It's my time to grinch it up and write rants in my journals about how annoying my holiday weight is or how sad I am that my loved ones aren't here.

This year, I'm different. Instead of hating the holidays because of its madness and its loss of meaning over the years, I'm trying to focus on the positive aspects of being together with my family. Instead of whining and complaining about how everyone is more successful than me, or prettier, I'm choosing to be nice. (Not because I want to be on Santa's good side or anything!)

I do realize though – being sad this time of the year is normal. It's normal to mourn the losses you've had this or previous years because you're yearning for them to make you happy or uplift you. But I am the only person in charge of my happiness.

It isn't the estranged father that is. Not the father figures that have passed away in current years. Nor the grandparents I love and miss so much. It's me. And my priority should be making sure that I have enough holiday cheer to give despite the hole or smallness of my heart.

The meaning of the holidays to me is to spread my happiness. But not by spreading it too thin. I mean genuine happiness. My sadness will creep up and try to destroy me – but it's a selfish kind of sadness and I will try my very best to put others first while also taking care of myself.

My happiness means giving people genuine holiday wishes and maybe perhaps granting them. Smiling and laughing at myself with my family because I forgot what the function of the apple slicer is and looks like. My sadness is only a scratch on the canvas of my happiness; I'm not going to lose my sanity over it.

Yet if you do, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with being mad that someone forgot your birthday which just so also happens to be Christmas Eve. Nothing wrong with being frustrated that your father didn't show up once again for the holiday celebration. It's just – what's more important? A perfect holiday season or your happiness?

Happy holidays and don't forget that the biggest gift you give isn't the 80-inch television, but your heart.