- Only send Christmas cards to the people you rarely see, but want to stay in touch with. To add to my relief, Jim offered to take on this project for us and still enjoys selecting the cards, writing the notes, addressing and mailing them.
- Simplify your decorating. I realized that for each of our 30 plus years of marriage, I had bought more and more decorations. What once was a weekend project to complete, now took a weekend just to find and unpack all of the boxes. My first stress-less year I decided to only use what was convenient to find and had the most sentimental value. Because I wanted to concentrate on using memorable decorations, I took pictures out of our family albums of our three children that were taken over of the years of them with Santa, framed them and placed them throughout our home. As young adults they were both surprised and thrilled to see them used as decorations. Now this is something they look forward to seeing each year and showing to their children when they come to visit for the holidays.
- Cut back on excess holiday cooking. This was somewhat easy for me since I had announced several years earlier that after preparing meals for our family for twenty-five years, I was retiring from cooking. What I did decide to prepare was because I wanted to, not because I felt like I had to follow tradition.
- Set a holiday budget. This included gifts, entertaining and anything else that involved spending during the holidays. Our children were the ones who suggested we draw names. Not only had our family grown, but so had each of their spouses’ families. They insisted Jim and I also participate and made us promise we would not bend the rules. I have to admit this choice was especially hard the first time we did this since we had always enjoyed giving gifts to our children, their spouses and all of our grandchildren. Children can be overwhelmed at this time of year. We quickly realized it is not so much about the gift, but the love that is shared and the opportunity we have to all be together that is important.
- Focus more on the true meaning of the holidays. Don’t be influenced by the endless commercials, advertisements, old traditions and unwanted pressures. We didn’t totally give up the idea of traditions altogether, we just enjoyed creating our new ones. With less stress, came more time, time to pause and enjoy seeing the decorations, hearing the music and reflecting on the meaning of this very special holiday.
Don’t wait until December to start de-stressing. Begin today. Maybe you will use one or more of these ideas or come up with some of your own. Now is the time to discuss and determine your new traditions, decide what you most enjoy doing and share your new traditions with family and friends. Who knows, maybe some of them will learn from you how they too can stress less and enjoy the Holidays more!
Martha Lanier is president of IGNITE Your Potential, Inc. where she works with individuals to expand their vision, take immediate action and achieve extraordinary results. Learn more about her coaching services at www.IgniteYourPotential.com. She can be reached by calling 770-886-6033 or sending an email to martha-at-igniteyourpotential-dot-com. Copyright 2007 IGNITE Your Potential, Inc. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to copy the information provided in this article, in whole or in part, when this statement is included in its entirety.
