The holidays are here again! While this can be a great time to enjoy family, friends and the excitement of children, it can also be a stressful time. We all want our loved ones to have a great holiday season. And this may lead us to over-commit. This month, we are focusing on ways to relieve holiday stress.
To start, here are some general tips. Later, we will focus on specific techniques, like yoga. And groups who might find the holidays especially hard, like children and teens in foster care.
It is easy to decide to do lots of things over the holiday season and then find yourself running around without enjoying any of it. Here are some suggestions about how to reduce stress so you can increase fun:
- Make lists. Write down the events that you want to attend or meals you want to cook or gifts that you want to give. Then prioritize them so what you really want to do or give comes first. Then go back through and put things in the order of how realistic they are. If you really want to give your child an X-box but it is not in the budget, then that item needs to move down the list. Remember that you are not trying to do everything, but you should end up with things that you really CAN and WANT to do at the top.
- Decide what NOT to do. Cross things off the lists that you can’t or don’t want to do. Or if you can find others to help or delegate to, then do that. We can rarely do all that we would like to in these few short weeks of the holidays. So certainly don’t do things that are unrealistic or too difficult.
- Let things be imperfect. There can be a lot of pressure to make everything just right, to have the best meal, or the present that your child really wants. But it is not always possible to meet everyone’s expectations. And sometimes the messy cookie-baking that produced funny looking reindeer is the most fun of all.
- Take help if you need it. If your family needs a little bit of help this season, click here for a great list of resources available in the area. Or maybe you just need a friend to babysit while you go shopping. Give yourself permission to ask for help when you need it. This season can be stressful enough without making yourself miserable by trying to handle it all on your own.
- Give help if you can. During this season, children in particular tend to get focused on what they might GET. But sometimes the best way to feel good is by giving to or helping others. There are lots of people who will not have much during this holiday. Your whole family can participate in activities to help them, like selecting a toy for Toys for Tots, or taking an ornament from a local giving tree.
- Stick to routines. This is especially important for kids. There are likely to be lots of activities and changes in schedules. The break from school is a major one. But maintaining bed time and eating routines can help to reduce the potential stresses of running around. It can also make it much easier to get back to “real life” after the holiday season is over.
- Make time for yourself. It might feel like you have to devote every spare moment to your special holiday plans. But none of those plans will be very much fun if you are exhausted and grumpy. So make sure that you take time out every day to do something for yourself. Maybe that is taking a walk, or a nap, or reading a book. Sneaking in an extra round of gift wrapping doesn’t count!
The winter holiday season can be a lot of fun. There are all sorts of things to do and see, songs to sing, hot chocolate to drink! Let’s all take as much of the good stuff as we can, even if it’s not perfect. And let the stress go!
