The holidays are fast approaching and even though it may have seemed like only yesterday that we were tanning in the sweltering summer heat, it’s long overdue that you started making your holiday plans. One thing which can always attack around this same time of year is stress. It happens the same way every year, every year we want to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes. So what do we do year after year? If you’re thinking about just opting out altogether and staying home, don’t do that! Here are some tips for holiday get together stress reduction.
Get Cerebral: The holidays can be a stressful time because we all over think the small stuff and under emphasize what’s really bothering us. We dread the way that a gift is wrapped but we don’t address the underlying emptiness we’ve been feeling around the holidays. Rather than letting these feelings fester, break out
Plan: If you keep going back to your parents home for the holidays but your brother and sister have their kids staying in your old bedroom which has long ago become a craft room, that’s not a good thing to relive year after year. Instead make your plans and make them known. Maybe you can stay with friends, maybe you get a hotel, maybe you just come out for the day and leave that night. Whatever your plan, make a different one than the one that’s been upsetting you all of these years on.
Lowered Expectations: Too often the doe-eyed child in our heads wants to believe in the miracle of Christmas even as the adult in our right mind knows that these hopes are going to be dashed. If you go into an event with unrealistically lofty expectations then the chances are that you are going to be disappointed . Rather than setting yourself up for that heartache, remember that no one is perfect, you have been let down before, and lower your expectations so that you’re not disappointed. You also might want to put forth some added effort so that with some added time put in you can craft the event that you’d like to have happen! Who knows, if you increase your effort, you could even be surprised by the very people you thought would let you down.
Tradition Shift: Another great plan is just to get out of the mindset of “this is the way that things are every year.” Things are always changing and even if you have been stuck in a similar rut for years on, that doesn’t mean you can’t make your own holiday traditions which are much more to your liking.
The holidays are stressful but they don’t have to be as stressful as we have made them. Last minute shopping and traffic jams can’t always be avoided. If you implement these tactics into your holiday gathering plans you may just wind up with fonder holiday memories than those which you are accustomed to.
