Melancholy: Underrated?

First of all, where have all my commenters gone? Are y'all out Christmas shopping?
Back on the computer after a day in Atlanta. The purpose was to attend a memorial service for a friend who died unexpectedly the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Eleanor was 46. What a beautiful, gracious woman.
Then upon my return, I found a post from a listserve I'm on. It strikes a chord. Because of the listserve's rules, I can't copy it here but the gist is that melancholy, a "down" mood that sits somewhere between clinical depression and euphoria, is underrated. The writer says she's hearing from lots of folks who think there's something wrong with them because they're not in the holiday spirit.
(Don't know about you, but I have a touch of that every year at this time. And at work, we joke about all the "holiday blues" stories--not about their content, per se, but that people are probably not blue until they read all those stories.)
The listserve post was prompted because the writer had found this book at a bookstore. I'll have to check into it myself.
(To read an NPR interview with Wilson, click here.) I could also recommend "Acedia and Me" by Kathleen Norris. Read about that one here.
The thing is, the culture (including the culture of religion) has one preferred mood: up. But our souls/psyches know otherwise. We cycle through seasons. Integrating the cycles/moods/seasons takes time and patience and wisdom and something far deeper than giddiness. (Also a fan of giddiness, I'll take it when I can get it!) And I also believe we can hold many emotions in tension at once, if we permit ourselves: Joy and sadness and grief and thanksgiving.
Melancholy strikes, at least for me, when things don't exactly add up or when I grieve with people. Seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Like my friend's wife dying at 46, and our friend Lucius a few months back at 47.
Maybe we can make a friend of Melancholy and then she won't be such a stranger.
What do you think?