Holiday Season is coming up with all fun activities and gatherings with your favorite friends and family! Or – Holiday Season is coming up with stress and depression for the things you MUST do! Which scenario do you prefer?
The first one I guess!
It is time to start now to make the perfect Christmas and New Year Holidays. With a little bit of planning it is achievable. Miscommunication and unrealistic expectations are usually the causes of all this stress. That is why you need to start talking with your folks – now!
Here are 7 tips to help you make it happen:
1. Gather your closest family NOW and have an honest discussion about everybody’s expectations. Decide on all where / what / why / who you can agree on. Document your agreement. Make sure everyone gets their copy of the agreement.
2. Decide who will be responsible for what -Document.
3. Make a preliminary list of all meals just to make an overview of the “food issue”. This may seem like a premature thing to plan but having a large family I know it helps to plan ahead. If you are aware of it you might even buy certain items ahead when you accidently come across them.
4. Decide on Christmas gifts. One or many? Price level? Discussing this ahead will set more realistic expectations.
5. Buy your gifts and maybe also some of your food online and save time! Here is a great tip I stumbled upon for you: Shop online and get cashback (in pure money) on all the things you buy anyway – click here to benefit from it CashBackToYou (buy yourself a nice treat for the money you save). This platform also works for online hotel bookings and some other services. Check it out!
6. Ask your guests to bring some food to the dinner table – instead of flowers or chocolate for the hostess. It is fun to share and exiting to try someone else’s cooking. If you have several guests – make it a potluck!
7. Make a preliminary to do list for the weeks ahead – use “backwards engineering”. Start from the date when everything needs to be done. Then spread the tasks over the time period you have to your disposal. That will make it clear and save time and energy.
Does this seem boring? Then make it fun! Are you afraid of what the others will say – because you have ALWAYS done all the work yourself? Is it too untraditional? Then get out of your comfort zone and try this new way of thinking and ask for this. Involving everyone will make you grow together. This is a time for everyone – including YOU – to have fun and be able to relax. Just do it together!
And don’t forget – good enough is good enough! Good luck with this important de-stress work.
Which of the tips is your favorite? What tip do you always use to be less stressed in the Holiday Season? Please share your ideas so others can use them too – and I love to read your comments below.
To your success – and keep smiling!
