Nate, greetings from the UK and best wishes for the holiday.

As someone who does not celebrate Christmas I totally agree with the sentiments above:

on the way there everyone is happy and giddy and social and on the way back they are sleepy and crabby and poorer.

I am told the 'peak' day for depression is around the 6th of January at the point of coming back from the twin binges of Christmas and the New Year. We live in a society now that is one of 'quantity' with little 'quality' especially in peoples day to day lives.

That used to be the case .....now it is after the Super Bowl

Nothing left to look forward to after that ......