It's over."

There you are, trying to open up gifts, watching others open gifts and then it happens. Someone says it.

Those two dreaded words people say, not the day after Christmas, but the day of Christmas. Wow, that's an awesome way to make me want to open my next present. It might even get everyone else a little more excited.

I know in my mind I am thinking the same thing, but I would never say that because I like to pretend I don't feel that way.

Then someone else says it, and it's like, well maybe Christmas really is over, while I'm sitting there with about 15 gifts in front of me left to open (I know it sounds a little contradictory).

I don't know about anyone on campus, but it is a fact that people suffer from post-Christmas depression or post-holiday blues.

According to www.kgmb.com, studies show mental health emergencies increase during the three weeks following the holidays.

I feel a little down after the holidays. There is so much buildup almost two months before Christmas that having it end abruptly almost seems like something is being taken away.

The season is "over," and it is time to go back to our normal routines. But is it really that easy to go back to a normal life? Christmas tunes are replaced with the Top 40, trees are taken down, a majority of people go back to being their bitter selves and the guilt-free indulgence in chocolate and cookies is giving way to troublesome worries about love handles.

Is it me or has anyone else noticed that people become friendlier during the last two months of the year?

Besides all of these things being a letdown, the one thing I hate doing most is saying goodbye. That is the one word I dreaded to face after the holidays when I left home to return to Ruston a couple of weeks ago.

I know it sounds silly, living only 70 miles away, but life here can be so busy and stressful that I rarely have a chance to sit down and watch television, much less travel the hour and 15 minutes to my house in Shreveport.

On a regular basis, a part of me would be sad to leave my family, but for some reason, during this time of year it is even harder.

The short January days and long cold nights don't make matters any easier. But when I came back to Ruston this year, I decided I wasn't going to let the post-Christmas blues get me down.

Although it is over, there is always next year. And if you think about it, there's something not so special about an event that happens all of the time.

So if you're feeling a little unhappy the holidays are over, just remember, that is what makes it exciting, the fact that Christmas does happen only one day of every year.

Leave the past in the past and look forward to the feature. Remember that life is a cycle of changes and each New Year is different.

Jennifer Reynolds is a junior journalism major from Shreveport and serves as senior news editor for The Tech Talk.