Holiday Stress

What holiday stress? Flag Day? Father’s Day? Fourth of July? Nope. The purpose of this article is to address reducing the stress of the winter holidays (Thanksgiving, New Years, and Christmas, Chanukah, or Kwanzaa). The people that appear to get through the holidays effortlessly generally do so because they start doing some activities early in the year! When you try to do all your holiday shopping at the last minute, it is very stressful because we often can’t find what we really want to get. The stores may be out of popular items, the prices may be inflated for the holidays, or we just might not have enough time to really think of good gift ideas. During the holiday shopping season, the stores are crowded, the parking lots full, and traffic is also hectic. Therefore, if you have a long shopping list, it is a great idea to do your shopping throughout the year, taking advantage of good deals when they occur. This also helps your budget in that you spread your holiday expenses out over many months, not just one or two. Starting your shopping early allows you to make better choices as well and will result in you feeling better about what you do select for those on your list. If you plan to make gifts for people, starting several months early gives you a chance to experiment and make sure your idea will work. It also gives you the opportunity to do a little bit here and a little bit there and not get totally burnt out on the process before all the gifts are completed. Starting early also helps prevent forgetting important people. You won’t need to run around at the last minute getting whatever you can get your hands on if you’ve thought about it in advance. Making a list of everything that needs to get done, then putting those tasks on your calendar should help you get ready for the holidays with very little stress. If you would like to enjoy the next holiday season instead of stressing out, it wouldn’t hurt to start thinking about it very early in the year.