These tips help ensure a smooth sailing festive season instead of a stressed holiday.
Christmas holidays can be stressful with all the last minute rush, including household preparation, gift-buying and other Christmas events.
Here are ways to relieve stress and have a more relaxed holiday.
Budgeting and Spending
- Avoid the financial worry of unnecessary expenditures by planning holiday spending the same way you plan the rest of your finances. If you don't have enough cash, by all means slash your budget to match your resources. If taking on a debt is unavoidable, then planning how to pay it off should be done ahead.
Children
- Late nights and other holiday activities can take their toll on children, teenage or young adults. Take it easy on them. Instead of losing your temper over their whining, quarrelling or unruly behavior, suggest an occasional quiet activity for an hour or so.
- For smaller kids, trade baby-sitting with a friend or relative so that you each can have some time for focused shopping, cooking, or other chores.
- Eat well and properly. Shopping, running around, and even worrying can drive you to skip meals. Poor nutrition can lead to stress. Carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice tend to boost levels of our brain's natural upper. Have a piece of toast or a bowl of pasta, but go easy on the creamy sauces, as well as the festive drinks. Overeating can cause sluggishness, and alcohol can give a next-day low, adding to feelings of being flat out.
Food Preparation
- Prepare as much food ahead of time. Some can be prepared earlier and frozen up to three or two weeks.
Household
- Avoid playing "super" by trying to do everything perfect. An over-baked chocolate cake or not properly lighted and well-decorated Christmas tree will not make the holiday celebration terrible.
Sleeping
- Get enough sleep. Too many late nights, including Christmas concerts, cooking and wrapping of gifts will seriously deplete ability to handle multi-tasks, which might cause unnecessary stress.
Mailings - Christmas Packages and Cards
- Save trips to the post office. It greatly helps if the list of your recipients (with items to be sent) is prepared ahead of time.
- Enter the addresses of everybody (personal and business) to whom you're sending cards into your home computer. To address cards, print addresses onto sheets of peel-and-stick labels. For the computer savvy, some word processors can be used to print address labels.
- Try one-stop shop, as much as possible. Maybe this is the year everybody in the family gets books, or clothes, or CDs or shoes.
- Shop when there is less crowd. Find out the best days in your local malls when there are fewer shoppers.
- Consider gift certificates, instead of shopping. Certificates can be for movies, coffee and dessert, books, and other available offers.
- Shop online. You'll probably find virtually anything you would at the shopping centers. Some web sites offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount and often deliver within days or even hours.
- Set a self-imposed deadline by which you have shopped, decorated and wrapped your gifts. Maybe, you can target December 19 or 20. This way you can have a few days buffer to Christmas Day into the New Year.
Have a great, low-stress Christmas holidays!
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The copyright of the article Tips to Reduce Christmas Stress in Personal Development is owned by Tel Asiado. Permission to republish Tips to Reduce Christmas Stress in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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