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So I watched about a billion youtube videos about doing the fairly simply, layered haircut I favor yourself. And it is actually fairly idiot proof, you basically let your head do the work for you. Ponytail it all at your forehead instead of your crown, cut teh ponytail at the desired length, and take the band out. Voila. The natural spaces on your head arrange the hair at different lengths as it takes further from the nap to your forehead than mid-head and crown, etc. etc. It's faster, no awkward descriptions and miscommunications, and best of all, no product hard sell. There is nothing a the salon I can't get cheaper elsewhere. And my hair is long enough that if it doesn't work out for my texture(you never know, salon or at home really, what a particular cut will do with your individual hair I have learned the hard way, I look like a weird porcupine with some kinda bent quill birth defect if I try to rock the really short hair) I can go in and get the layered bob I was thinking of. I'm going to cut it longer than I was thinking I would like it to see how it looks first, and then I can always do it a second time if it works for me. Then I have to redye it green, it's fading into blond really fast now. What is everyone else doing with their hair?

And another potential path to dealing is that like so many other things, holidays are cultural expectation. We are taught these feelings and expectations for the time of year, it's not a natural biological/brain chemical response. We have the choice inside how much weigh to put on this cultural construct while we are figuring it all out. It takes a lot of years, I know, but from personal experience I know it's possible to take a good look at our actual lives, and adjust our internal feelings about them, which has been the absolute best remedy for me personally in dealing with the change, and I'm in group a, the really dysfunctional, trying to have tv perfect holidays, then back to the day to day crap. Realizing after several years that it's just another day altered by the cultural understanding which I never really fit into all that great anyway. This is not a slow process, and not right for everyone, but if you think it might be right for you it's completely worth persuing and can be done. How I ended up on the path is this. We have a holiday here called Sweetest Day. It's basically a second Valentine's Day that Hallmark made up to sell cards in thier off season between the summer wedding season and the winter holidays. I had never heard of it growing up on the east coast where it didn't catch on, and my freinds in Jersey still tell me they've only ever heard about it from me when I ask outta curiousity. So I watched people scrabble about to make it a 'perfect holiday' for their so's like they do in feb for Valentine's day, and it was a revelation. Holidays are just social made up things, and I had the choice to participate or not. (Once someone wrote down the name of the holiday for me and I understood it, I kept makeing swedish meatballs because I thought they were saying Swedish Day and I Thought it was some heritage celebration locally like the German Festival they do annually in Toledo with all the food, not just beer). And I didn't feel left out, or alone on years I didn't have either a boyfriend or girlfriend at the time. And that made me stop and look at the other holidays, and realize...they're the same. So now Christmas isn't a huge deal other than having a bit of fun looking at all the bling all around town and a nice family dinner with gifts. And if the gifts and family dinner went away, no big deal. Because I spent years working out my internal feelings vs. the cultural ones I was taught and get externally reinforced. It was...freeing. What other paths have you guys taken? I'm curious what my other options were aside from Monica's excellent suggestions and the one I took.