I used to be a real Grinch during the holidays.

	Budinger

It was not that I didn't have an appreciation for the season and all it meant -- good will to men, peace on Earth, a joyous boost to the economy through crass commercialism. It's just that the work leading up to the Big Day always put me off.

For starters, there was the shopping. Coming up with gift ideas was hard enough. Actually mounting an expedition to crowded malls or those trendy high-priced shops was downright daunting. I would put it off as long as I could. It was not unknown for me to be out on Christmas eve with other last-minute, mostly male shoppers, eyes glazed in desperation, pawing through a table of picked-over leather purses at Sears for the perfect gift that says Merry Christmas so eloquently.

Wrapping gifts, of course, was a hell of its own.

And there was the house decorating in outdoor temperatures that would numb an Eskimo, lights that refused to work and garlands that broke just after you put the ladder away. There was the perfect Christmas tree to find and force-feed through the front door and wrestle into a stand, only then to discover it had a trunk with enough twists in it to thrill Chubby Checker.

It was all such humbug.

The people around me didn't have much patience with my carping and whining. My lovely spouse would give me a crack over the head and tell me to snap out of it. "I don't have time for sympathy. I have these cookies to bake!" The cats learned to scamper for their bolt holes as soon as I walked into the house.

A colleague, fed up with my anti-holiday attitude, threatened to plunk a light box on my desk to cure what he diagnosed as chronic Seasonal Affective Disorder.

In truth, he may have been on to something.

There is a theory that about 6 percent of this country's population suffers from SAD, which is depression that sets in with the winter season and doesn't lift until the crocuses bloom in the spring.

A lack of sunshine is considered the culprit, and high intensity light boxes the cure. It's cheaper than plane tickets to the Caribbean, but not nearly as much fun.

I am much better now.

No, I didn't take the light cure, and I'm not really sure what changed my grouchy outlook on the Christmas season. It may have been just watching my children grow up and realizing that I'm setting memories of Christmases past and traditions of Christmases to come, and dear old Dad should be credited with more than providing just the grumps and growls of the day.

In any event, I am now a Christmas guy. Have been for many years. I'm into the program. I look forward to the challenges as well as the fun. I actually go to Christmas parties and have a good time.

This year more than others, though, I came go realize just how shallow my self-indulgent ranting and largely self-imposed depression of years ago really was.

There are neighbors around me and others I know who have suffered the loss of a family member, and are facing their first Christmas with an empty chair at the table and fewer presents under the tree.

Holidays can be a source of tremendous pain as well as joy, and we must be sensitive to that.

It's very likely we will be meeting these neighbors and acquaintances as we move through the social whirl of the season. The questions arise. What do we say? How do we deal with someone in grief? How can we get past the elephant in the room and say or do something to ease the pain? Do we even bring up the loss in the first place?

I turned to Sister Elizabeth Apel, chaplain of Trinity Hospice in Forest Hills who leads a bereavement support group called "Facing the Holidays" at North Hills Community Outreach in Hampton.

She suggests we don't follow our first instinct to duck and hide.

"Don't be afraid to talk to them and don't be afraid to say the person's name," she advises. "The person who died is still very much a part of their lives. Their spirit is there; the memory is there."

What they don't want to hear from neighbors and friends, she says, is the "get on with your life" type of conversation.

"They don't want people to tell them what to do; to get over it. To get rid of the clothes. To change the room. Everybody grieves, and they do it in their own time. It may take two weeks, it might be two years."

The most important thing we can do, she added, is simply to listen.

"Let them know you care, but give them the space to be themselves."

At this time of year, it's easy to forget that not everyone is up for the holidays. There are those who dread them for very legitimate reasons. And if we have an opportunity to reach out, and at least say we understand and we care, then we should take it.

If we don't, we truly deserve the labels of Grinch and Scrooge.