When I was younger, Christmas was a magical time! That whole month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was full of family time, decorating, baking, shopping, and so much holiday cheer. As I got older and had kids of my own, Christmas started to feel like a checklist rather than a magical time.
In fact, the last couple of years I have fallen out of love with Christmas. Last year I was an absolute grinch and couldn’t wait for it all to be over! Don’t get me wrong, I love being with family and that part of Christmas I always enjoy, but the long list of things to do sends me into anxiety overload! I feel like I can not be alone in this feeling either. I’m sure moms all over feel this way. From getting all the presents, budgeting for all things Christmas, making food, going to see Santa, traveling between homes, decorating, and doing all the Christmas activities, things can easily start to feel overwhelming.
I hated the overwhelming feeling that Christmas brought and then I had serious mom guilt because this is such an exciting time for kids and I was being such a grinch. So when the holiday’s started approaching this year, I knew I had to do something to kick my butt into gear and enjoy the holidays again. I wanted to share my tips with you and what I am doing different to help avoid stress around the holidays.
Plan to Avoid Stress
You’ve heard it before, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. I know that sometimes it doesn’t sound as magical to plan everything out, but I have found that by planning everything I want to do, I have been able to avoid stress drastically!
What is important to you when it comes to the holidays?
- Seeing Santa?
- Decorating the house?
- Buying Christmas gifts early?
- Family time?
- Quiet Christmas at home?
- Seeing family members?
- Making Christmas cookies?
- Gingerbread houses?
When you know what is important to you, it makes it easier to plan out and avoid stress. For me, getting the shopping done early is important to me. It makes me anxious and I knew that if I got it done early, I can relax and enjoy more.
Also, for me, it’s important to see my family for Christmas. That means that I already know Christmas Eve we will spend time with my husband’s family and Christmas day we will spend with my family. I’ve also carved out time for the kids to send Santa letters and to decorate the house. Both of those are important to the kids, so it is important to me.
By planning out everything, it keeps me sane. I know when we are doing everything, I know there is time for everything I want to do, and I avoid stress that is unnecessary.
Set Your Boundaries
There are a million things to do around the holidays. It would be impossible to do them all; however, people will try to get you to do it all. DO NOT feel guilty for setting boundaries and telling people no. This will drastically help you avoid stress.
Like I said above, we visit my family on Christmas Day and my husband’s family on Christmas Eve. My family actually has quite a few traditions on Christmas Eve but I have had to forgo some of them to make Christmas work for us. I know this upsets my family, but I found if I am trying to get to two different houses on Christmas Eve then all I do all day is stress and rush through things instead of being in the moment.
By establishing boundaries, it will keep you sane and keep you on track with your plans. You might ruffles some feathers, but setting boundaries typically does. Just make sure you are doing what YOU want to be doing for the holidays.
Work Ahead to Avoid Stress
Besides planning, this was the thing that helped me the most to avoid stress. I absolutely hate the feeling of doing something at the last minute. So to have things done ahead of time really reduces the stress I feel around the holidays.
Presents are a big one that you can do ahead of time. By the time this blog post comes out, I will have all my presents purchased and for the most part, wrapped under the tree. It feels like a huge weight off my shoulders. Not only is it a huge part of the holidays that can be checked off, but I also don’t have to worry if a present will be delivered on time or not.
Some of my other suggestions would be to go see Santa early, decorate early, and wrap presents early. Going to see Santa is definitely not one of my favorite things to do. The lines are long and you typically have to over pay for a photo of your child looking anxiously at a strange man. But if you plan ahead, you can typically see Santa quickly and sometimes you can even make a reservation so you can skip the line.
Decorating and wrapping presents can easily be done early. Even if you don’t turn your lights on until mid December (which is what I like to do), you can still put them up early and have them ready to go. I also like to wrap presents as I buy them because then I don’t have a huge pile to do all at once, and little eyes won’t be able to see their gifts early.
I know these things seem rather small, but they can add up to quite a lot of stress. If they are done early, you can simply sit back and relax the rest of the holiday season. You better believe that the week of Christmas I will be doing nothing but soaking up all the family time I can, instead of running around and doing these
Spread Things Out
This tip is pretty self explanatory but every year I find myself trying to pack too many things into one weekend. You can’t buy and wrap all the presents, see Santa, decorate the house, bake cookies, prep for Christmas dinner, and have a relaxing movie night with your family all in one day. It’s just not possible, and if it is possible for you, you’re probably not reading this.
This is where planning and spreading things out work together. I would always fail to plan and therefore try to shove everything I wanted to do into one weekend. It didn’t work and left me incredibly stressed out. Now I make sure when I plan, I am spreading all the things out so that I don’t have too many things to do at one time.
Go With the Flow
Going with the flow can be very hard for some people. And by some people, I mean me. I am an enneagram 1, which means I like to make and stick to a schedule. But life has proven to me over and over again that things do not always go my way. (Don’t know your enneagram? Find out here!)
Trust me when I say that I am still learning how to go with the flow, but I do know that it makes life easier. Things may fall through this holiday season or you might just run out of time, and that’s ok. So you planned to make gingerbread houses but Christmas shopping took longer than you expected. It’s okay! Let the gingerbread houses go!!
Holiday activities are typically the same year after year. So, if you don’t get to it this year, you can make it a priority next year. It’s not worth it to stress out about it. All you are going to lose is time in the present!
I hope these tips can help make your holidays a little more stress free and bring a little more cheer into your life! Also, if you want more help on reducing stress, check out my blog post here! Let me know if you have any good tips to avoid stress in the comments!