At 15, Lydia isn't looking forward to Christmas this year.

She's locked up in the county's juvenile justice complex, where the teenage girls inside her unit took their minds off their plight by winning a decorating contest this week. They glued cotton balls to the hallway walls to mimic snow, strung paper snowflakes from the ceiling and made a star for the Christmas tree out of gold paper stuffed with toilet tissue.

Still, it will be a struggle come Christmas Day.

"It's hard," the Ventura girl said, her eyes filling with tears.

"I'm ruining my whole family's Christmas, not just mine," said Lydia, whose full name is being withheld because she is a juvenile.

For the imprisoned, the poor, the mentally ill and those living in fractured homes, the holidays and their aftermath can be more stressful than any other time of the year.

"Most of our families are living in crisis," said Socorro Lopez Hanson, executive director of Community Action of Ventura County, a nonprofit agency aiding the poor and homeless. "When you add something else on top of a traumatic situation, it can't help but put more stress in their lives. Every parent wants to provide the best they can for children. When you don't have anything, it hurts."

Fantasy gives way to reality

The depth of that struggle is hard to quantify, because many indicators of trouble conflict. Jail bookings for felony domestic violence appear relatively consistent from month to month, even as shelters have far lower numbers of people this time of year. That might be because victims will go to almost any length to avoid spending the holidays in a shelter, officials said.

"Typically, women will stay (at home) because it's the holiday," said Cherie Duval, president and chief executive officer of the Coalition to End Family Violence, which runs a shelter for battered women. "We see a lag around Christmas and Thanksgiving. Then the numbers will start to soar again."

Calls to child abuse hotlines fall slightly in December but start climbing again in January, February and March. Officials see the trend at Casa Pacifica, a center for abused, neglected and emotionally disturbed children near Camarillo. December marks the low point for the number of children in the facility's emergency shelter for abuse victims, and January the highest.

"That's because the fantasy of the holidays is followed by reality," said Jody Kussin, a clinical psychologist who directs community services at the nonprofit organization.

"Everyone is hoping they are going to have a magical Christmas, and the 24th and 25th are going to meet all their needs. By the first of the year, when none of that happens, everything crashes and the fantasy system breaks down."

Depression often sets in

No conclusions can be reached about suicides because the Ventura County Medical Examiner-Coroner's Office does not collect data by month. Medical Examiner Dr. Ronald O'Halloran said the violent deaths reviewed by his office do not change substantially based on the season of the year. Nor do some health officials see much of an increase in emergency rooms in attempted suicide cases.

But depression often sets in, especially for those facing the first year without a loved one who has died, a nursing official said.

"For years and years, they used to tell us there was an increase in the suicide rate," said Cyndie Cole, a longtime emergency room nurse who now is director of nursing at Ventura County Medical Center. "It is more that people have feelings of despondency or depression during the holidays, particularly if they have lost someone. The holidays for some reason are overwhelming for a lot of people."

Deaths are high in December, but that's true of the rest of the winter as well, county records show. Health officials tie that to an increase in pneumonia and other infections. The risk of a serious accident due to drunken driving also goes up.

December is one of the busiest times for DUIs, said Capt. Cliff Williams, who oversees California Highway Patrol operations in eastern Ventura County.

"We see a lot of first-time DUIs, people who otherwise wouldn't be drinking much of anything at all," he said. "They're drinking during the holiday parties that occur during December."

No money for gifts

Families living on the edge struggle with the expectations of the perfect Christmas their children hear about from schoolmates and the media, social service officials say.

At a holiday party Wednesday in Oxnard for needy families, dozens of children and their parents gathered for a lunch of lasagna and vegetables, a magic show and a visit from Santa Claus.

Santa passed out gifts wrapped in shiny paper. Each child could claim one, the only present some would receive.

Lizbeth Becerra of Oxnard came to the event holding her 1-year-old daughter, Fatima. Her 6-year-old son wanted a bicycle, but there was no money this Christmas for gifts, she said. "It is hard because my daughter and son have no presents," she said.

Her husband is a farmworker who has not worked lately because of the rain, she said after the lunch sponsored by Community Action. They would mark Christmas by going to Mass at their Oxnard church and getting together with family, she said.

Inside Community Action's party room, the children wore balloons twisted into hats around their heads, laughed and compared their newfound toys.

Frank Ramos, a homeless man who volunteers at the nonprofit agency, watched them with delight. It's hard for families to go without this time of year, he said, but he celebrates by giving.

"Look at them," he said, pointing to the rows of laughing children. "Look at their eyes."