How to Have a Low Stress Holiday

It’s the holiday season. And as much as that should bring joy to our minds, for many it bring stress.

Here are some tips on how to have a low stress holiday.

Get Sleep

It’s like the holidays come and everyone just forgets basic self-care. Plan ahead so you are not rushing around like crazy staying up all night to get things done. Keep up with regular sleep and everything will be better.

Make Lists

This is good to do in general. Lists keep us focused, on track and can save us a lot of time. You’re less likely to forget things and more likely to save time because you can be intentional with the order you do things in.

Plan One thing all out and other things simpler

Ah…Instagram with all your glory and these gorgeous and elaborate decorations and meal spreads.

Yeah right! That takes so much time!

Choose one meal that you and your family will have and make that bomb and fancy. Put out the small dessert forks. Add the garnishes. Go crazy.

But holy smokes. Once is enough. The rest of the meals and gatherings can be simplistically beautiful.

Less is more.

Don’t drown yourself trying to keep up with the Jones making everything little bit of décor or food perfect.

Be ok with being ok and have a lovely time.

Say you have a Budget

An unhealthy aspect of our culture I see is where we almost adopt a keeping up with the Jones in how much we spend on gifts and the perception of the quantity of those gifts.

Ug. Stop. The holidays are not the only time of the year to give gifts to those we love. I see parents get more worked up and carried away sometimes than the kids getting the gifts.

I also see so many adults get down after the big high of the holidays. The excitement is over and so sets in the despair of ‘oh I spent how much.’

Get a rough number in mind of what seems reasonable for your situation. And be happy and proud of that.

If a person receiving gifts isn’t happy or satisfied with what they got, there is a bigger issue of entitlement. And that is not going to be fixed by throwing more money down.

Saying you have a budget is an empowering statement to make. It gives us some control over our minds and habits. I have read snippets of James Clear’s Atomic Habits and what a book! This book helps identify systems so you can create small habits that can make a big difference in your life. Change your habits and change your life.

Don’t talk about Hot Button Topics

Whatever the hot button topics are in your family, just don’t discuss them.

I have come to develop a three-bubble system for interacting with people.

There are:

1. My chosen friends and family.
2. My family.
3. Everyone else I randomly interact with.

I see so many people just lose their shit and ruin the holidays, ruin relationships, ruin their night of sleep, ruin the ambiance for others visiting and just cause a lot of stress because everyone wants so badly for their opinion to be the most heard.

Not the time or space.

Leave these things on the backburner at the holidays.

Over these past years, as I have learned how to mentally have these bubbles, it has made visiting family and interacting with random people a lot easier. I learned I am not going to disown anyone. I am not going to leave some random stranger in a ditch even if I so grossly disagree with them and cannot even fathom their thoughts.

Once I realized people I know and love go off wishing with all their might for certain aspects of the world to be allowed or not allowed, their wishes are directly opposite to the values I want and what I think is a fair and equal world.

I don’t need to challenge this over Christmas dinner.

In general, I started see my family bubble as just my family bubble and I leave it at that.

For me, this mental bubble boundary has made a big difference in my own well-being.

(And ps – if you want to talk about this with someone, I have seen significantly higher success rates when it’s approached like, hey, I really don’t agree with you. I would like to understand more why you think like that. Can we meet later this week and talk about that?)

Be Mentally Prepared for a bit more Chaos

I don’t really know anyone’s house that gets cleaner at holiday times. There’s usually more cooking, more in and out, overnight bags getting loaded, unloaded and tossed around.

There is likely to be more mess than normal life.

So what. Embrace it.

It’s ok.

Enjoy the moment and be grateful there is a reason for the mess, a reason to feel behind, a reason to feel like things are a bit out of whack.

It will pass and you’ll be back to your organization of all the big spoons are only with the big spoons’ normal mode of operation before you know.

Don’t let moments and memories pass you by because you were so upset the small spoons were one spot over with the big spoons and you just haddddd to fix them.

Don’t Try to do it All

I often see people get into sinking ship mode with trying to hit up every little holiday activity. There are recitals at school, light show only on Saturday night, strolling a festival, etc.

Take a moment to make a bit of a game plan so you know which activities you really want to do.
This can help prevent a complete onslaught feeling of omg I must do everything and I have no idea how I am going to achieve that plan.

Be Grateful

Finally, be grateful.

Be grateful for what you have. Be grateful for what you can do. Be grateful someone wanted to try and help to put the dishes away even tho they put the small spoons with the big spoons.

Being grateful makes everything in life easier to deal with.

Adopt this habit.

And have a great holiday season!

Are there any other tips you would like to share? Any other coping tactics that you employ that help you thrive instead of just survive this time of year?

Wishing for all of us to have a wonderful time and take action on how to have a low stress holiday season.

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A few tidbits:

Shameless Plug: I just sent an order out today. Still have time to order from our Etsy shop. Special requests can be uploaded lickedly-split. 

Planners like these are one of the hottest selling items in recent times. If you want to buy one, by all means.
I use the Google free calendar and then I use notebooks I get for $0.79 cents at the discount store.

It’s more that you have a system that works for you.

If you are interested, I personally use these apps and have saved over a combined $200 so far this year on items I was going to buy anyway.

Rakuten : Ibotta : Fetch

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 Here are some of the favorite posts of the season and an eclectic array of various YouTube Christmas videos from around the globe.! Candy Cane Lane is usually a highly viewed post this time of year. 🙂  

If you are not a subscribers to our YouTube Channel, please consider subscribing. Also, if you like any of the videos, hitting the thumbs up button helps out a lot. Thank you!

Candy Cane Lane in Williamsport, PA

This was a fun light display in a town park in Brazil.

We happened upon so many random bands in the streets of Peru. Take note of the costumes and then just random people walking by.

This dance is pure silly! We heard this song DOZENS of times! This group of performers walked all over the streets of Chichicastenango for a week doing this dance over and over again.