7
tips for defusing holiday stress
by Ramona Creel of OnlineOrganizing.com
KNOW THYSELF
The first key to creating a peaceful holiday season is identifying
those holiday traditions that you ENJOY and those that you don’t.
When you spend your precious time and energy on activities that
you don’t find rewarding, you are destined to become FRUSTRATED
and cranky. So go ahead and be honest with yourself before the season
even starts. Make a list of every possible holiday “obligation”
that you can think of. Your list might contain (but not be limited
to) the following:
- send greeting cards
- bake holiday goodies
- decorate the house
- shop for gifts
- wrap gifts
- make the holiday meal
- attend church services
- go caroling
- volunteer
- visit extended family
- visit friends
- spend time with spouse
- plan family get-together
- spend time with kids
- decorate the tree
- clean house
- shop for food
- attend a concert/play
- watch holiday TV
- visit Santa
- look at lights
- host a party
- attend a party
- take a walk in nature
Now, here’s the real trick -- circle those items that you absolutely
enjoy doing and don’t want to miss out on this holiday season. And
cross out those that you hate, despise, and dread. Be HONEST here!
If you loathe baking, don’t try to convince yourself that this year
you will turn into Donna Reed with a batch of homemade gingerbread.
And you can get very specific if you need to. You might love visiting
with your parents, but can’t stand seeing your critical Aunt Louise.
That’s fine -- make visiting your parents one activity and seeing
Aunt Louise another. It might be a good idea to have everyone in
your family make their own lists -- everyone has different ideas
about what activities are joyous and which ones are miserable.
FITTING IN THE JOY
Take a look at your list -- which items did you circle? Did you
feel so strongly about some activities that you double-circled them
or put a star by the side? Those are your true priorities -- and
no matter what you do this season, you need to MAKE time to fit
them in. Notice I didn’t say “find” time -- the best way to assure
that you will never get around to doing something is to say, “I’ll
do it when I find a few free minutes.” If you want to do it, SCHEDULE
it into your calendar. If walking around your neighborhood with
your family singing carols and looking at holiday lights is a priority,
sit down together and pick an evening and have everyone block it
off. It’s as simple as that.
So at the start of the season, decide ahead of time which activities
on everyone’s lists are the most important. Of course, you’ll have
to be realistic about what you have time for -- you may only have
enough room in your schedule for each person to pick three priorities
instead of eight. And you may need to do a little TRADING with your
loved ones -- “I’ll go to Christmas Eve services with you, and in
return I’d like for you to go for a nature walk on Saturday with
me.” Creating harmony in any situation is about COMPROMISING --
just don’t allow yourself to bend so far that you give up all of
your priorities for someone else’s. Everyone should feel that his
or her needs are being met.
LET GO OF THE “HAVE TO’S”
So the big question now is “how do I fit in all of these
priorities when I’ve got other chores to do?” It can seem hard to
make time for caroling and roasting chestnuts and all of the good
stuff when you have so many OBLIGATIONS. Those “I have to’s” will
absolutely kill you! Well let me start by asking WHY you “have to”?
Are you being graded on how much you accomplish during the holidays?
Are you going to be judged harshly by your family, friends, and
co-workers if you skip out on the cards or parties or baking this
year? If they do judge you harshly, I guess you need to ask yourself
why you would want to have that kind of people in your life in the
first place! If you don’t want to do it, a simple NO should be sufficient
– especially if you find an activity that everyone in your household
has crossed off of their lists. Remember, the only things that you
“have to” do in this life are pay taxes and die -- putting up a
Christmas tree isn’t required!
Let me share a story to illustrate. A few years ago, my husband
and I had a really rough year and decided to SKIP OUT on the traditional
family Christmas get-together for the first time in our lives. We
chose to go on a trip by ourselves -- cross-country skiing in the
middle of nowhere in Colorado -- instead of spending the holidays
with our family. And since we were going out of town so early in
December, we only put up minimal decorations and didn’t send any
holiday cards. We worried and worried that we were going to OFFEND
someone with our crass insensitivity -- but do you know what happened?
Everyone we talked to (family included) said, “Boy, I wish I had
the courage to do that!”
It turned out that 90% of the people we knew had considered doing
the same thing at one point in time, but had never been able to
walk away from the pressure of the “have to’s.” Well, we had a marvelous
time (one of our best Christmases ever), everyone loved hearing
about our trip, and we now take a holiday vacation every other year.
FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT
But just because you don’t want to do it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t
have to get done at all. And, just because it needs to be done,
doesn’t mean that you have to do it (that’s the reverse corollary!)
Start by sitting down with your family and compare everyone’s “wants”
and “don’t wants” for the season. This is the time for a little
BARGAINING. If you love baking and shopping for presents but really
don’t enjoy decorating the house, see if your spouse or kids have
decorating marked as a priority on their lists. At the very least,
you might find someone else who feels neutral about a chore that
you completely despise! The holidays are an excellent time to learn
the fine art of NEGOTIATING!
And if you decide as a group that you really do want something done
but no one wants to do it, consider HIRING someone else to do it
for you. If you like having the house decorated but hate putting
up lights and garland, find a florist or interior designer that
can take on that particular chore. The same is true of many holiday
“obligations.” If you don’t like cooking, have your holiday meal
catered or buy a pre-cooked meal from the local deli or eat out.
If you love giving goodies to friends but don’t have time to bake,
buy “homemade” cookies from the local bakery. Have a housekeeper
give your home a good cleaning before your out-of-town guests arrive.
In this age of convenience and SERVICE-ORIENTED businesses, I guarantee
that you can find someone who is willing to do almost anything for
a fee!
DON’T MAKE IT A CHORE
Unfortunately, many of us have turned the holiday season into just
one more chore to be tackled. It’s as though the holidays have been
transformed into an intensified “to-do list” -- baking, shopping,
wrapping, visiting – no wonder the holidays stress people out so
badly! But it doesn’t have to be that way -- it’s all about PERSPECTIVE.
Do you remember when you were a kid and one of your parents introduced
you to the “clean up your room” game? Maybe you rushed around trying
to see how quickly you could get everything put away -- or perhaps
you sang and danced while you straightened up. Cleaning up was fun,
until you learned to look at it as a CHORE -- something to be tolerated,
something that “had” to be done but wasn’t in any way enjoyable.
Holiday tasks are the same way. At our house, we turn every holiday
“chore” into a PARTY. We have a house decorating party, where we
invite our friends to help out, put on some Christmas music, and
give everyone spiked eggnog. We take our holiday cards to the local
Starbucks and spend a very pleasant afternoon listening to carols,
drinking hot cocoa, and chatting as we write out our holiday greetings.
We even make gift-wrapping fun (my husband and I compete to see
who can get their gifts wrapped the fastest -- just like when we
were 6 years old!) The point is, you can make anything FUN, if you
create the right mood and the right frame of mind. So think about
how you can put a cheery spin on at least one “chore” this year
-- you might be surprised what a good time you have!
LOWER THE BAR
In a world where we seem to think that perfection can be attained
if we just work hard enough, we often feel a tremendous pressure
to outdo ourselves during the holidays. Each year, we want to buy
more gifts (or more expensive gifts) than last year, to host the
most elaborate party of the season, to make the house look more
festive than any other on the block. And in the process of trying
to OUTDO everyone else in the world, we end up missing out on the
real meaning of the holidays. We no longer have time to spend with
our loved ones, because we are on an insane quest to create the
PERFECT holiday.
This year, why not be a little bit REALISTIC about your holiday?
Accept right from the start that things may not go perfectly --
and the harder you try to mold your holidays exactly as you had
planned, the less likely they are to cooperate. And quite frankly,
sometimes less is more. Instead of attending a different party full
of strangers every night, why not pick two or three gatherings where
you will be surrounded by people you love? Rather than planning
a seven-course meal serving 75 people, wouldn’t a small potluck
dinner with your 10 best friends mean more to you? Do you really
need to buy dozens of gifts for your kids, or would they be happy
with just a few things they really wanted? Maybe this year, it’s
time to focus on the QUALITY of your experiences instead of the
QUANTITY.
Ramona
Creel is the founder of OnlineOrganizing.com
-- offering "a world of organizing solutions!"
Visit OnlineOrganizing.com
for organizing products, free tips, a speakers bureau -- and even
get a referral for a Professional Organizer near you. And if you
are interested in becoming a Professional Organizer, we have all
the tools you need to succeed. (Copyright 2000, Ramona Creel)
