Flip Holiday Stress Into Fun for You!

 

It seems the topic uppermost in so many of our minds at this time of year is stress. AKA Holiday stress. Too many gifts to buy, too little money. Too many cards to send out/email, gifts to wrap, people to visit – too little time. Too many relatives and others to be considerate of –

too little patience. Too little of you to go around. You are spread too thin in too many ways, which means the Holidays are anything but. 

Time for a flip. Yup. Time to flip your internal switch from overwhelmed to relaxed. OK, so maybe not all the way to relaxed, but how about to “doable”? To “manageable”? To where you can actually enjoy the Holidays instead of resenting them. Even if you can’t afford a personal shopper/package wrapper/etc. to take over all that has you running ragged.

Flip your switch. Take a moment to sit, breathe, and ask yourself: “What’s right with this picture?” How about the fact that you actually have friends and family to give gifts to? Many do not. You may loathe the office Holiday party, but guess what – you have a job. Many do not. You are positively grinching (pun intended) at having your relatives invade your home for the expected Holiday meal, with all the cooking/cleaning/decorating the event entails, but heck, you have a home. Many do not.

Secondly, ask yourself: “What’s right with me?” Ah yes. Because at the moment you are probably feeling inept, incompetent, and woefully insecure. None of which are who you truly are. If you’ve made it this far in life, you’ve had plenty of moments where you’ve been competent and on top of things. You can do this. All it takes is reminding yourself of your various successes, small and large. Taking another deep breath. Getting creative with whatever your Holiday duties are. Deliberately making the Holidays fun for YOU!

Gifts don’t have to cost lots of money. It truly is the thought that counts. You don’t have to stay for hours on end at the office party. You can spend a gracious half-hour or so there with a smile on your face and take a quiet unobtrusive departure. Holiday meals are as simple or as complicated as you choose to make them. Heck, what about a potluck adventure for a change?

Flip the switch. Refuse to let Holiday stress get the best of you, and instead, find the best FOR you in this Holiday Season.

 

How to Make Holiday Magic

The holidays can sometimes feel like one long list of obligations. You have to figure out which gifts to get for whom and how much you can afford to spend. You have to write holiday cards/notes/emails at least to some people, once again figuring out what to whom.

You have to figure out which relatives/friends you have to entertain, spend time with, tolerate, try not to argue with. You have to travel at the worst possible time of year given weather, traffic jams and airport/train station chaos. You have to jam your ordinary chores in with all the not-ordinary chores such as when are you going to find all that time to go shopping? Not to mention dealing with demanding, unruly, hyper children/grandchildren all along the way . . .

Ah, the holidays! But here’s the thing: the more you come at the holidays with a “have to” “got to” approach, the more harried and stressed you will be. Instead, if you adopt a “want to” “get to” approach, everything will go much better for you.

So before you dash off into the rain/sleet/snow/traffic to do whatever it is, take a moment to sit down and reflect.

What do you want to do in terms of gift-giving? There’s a world of difference between “I want to get Aunt Julia something she’ll really enjoy” and “I have to get Aunt Julia something decent.” Which feels better?

“I want to get my 5 year old a present she’ll enjoy and I have $20 to spend on her gift,” versus “I have to somehow manage to get my 5 year old something she’ll like on just a measly $20.” Both are true statements, but one is likely to cause you anxiety and stress, the other will inspire you with positive motivation.

You can practice the “I want to” approach with anything and everything. “I have to cook” becomes “I want to make something delicious for my family.” “I have to visit 3 sets of relatives in one day” becomes “I want to spend a fun couple of hours with each set of my relatives.”

The more you practice the “I want to” technique, the easier it becomes. All of a sudden, lo and behold, the holidays become the magic they were always meant to be.

Happy Holidays!

The Holidays: “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Really?

The Holidays! You’ve made your list and you’re checking it twice. Let’s see: not enough money in the budget to get the kids what they really want. Not enough for a quick two day get-away for you and your S.O., given the cost of transportation, accommodations, and a sitter who will put up for that long with the kids and your menagerie of 2 cats, 1 dog, 3 hamsters and 1 and ½ lizard (tail missing). Relatives who are thrilled to announce they’re flying in for a nice long visit, of course staying at your house. And if that wasn’t enough, it looks like one of you may be out of a job come the New Year.

With this, you’re supposed to be cheery, filled with Holiday spirit (not the alcoholic kind), and wishing peace and goodwill to all. You wonder if that includes downsizing employers.

What you would give for an alien to beam you up and out of this Holiday mess! 

Since that’s not likely to happen, try the following.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Harsh! You say. Cruel! OK, so? Dumping into self-pity at this juncture isn’t going to get the kids what they want, your honey and you some time away, or have your relatives magically disappear.

Quit wasting time and energy moaning about how awful it is. You already know it’s awful. What you don’t yet know is what you’re going to do about it.

Go into problem-solving mode. What can you give the kids that would please them? Or, how creative can you get with what they really want?

Same with the get-away with your honey. Make an afternoon at the local aquarium or wandering through art galleries, or hiking a trail your “get away.” Imbue it with specialness and romance so that the amount of time is far less important than the quality of the time spent together.

You may be stuck with the relatives visiting, but you’re not stuck with how long they stay with you or what you choose to do with them. Set boundaries. Preferably before they get there. You’ll feel better immediately.

People lose jobs every day of the year. They also get jobs every day of the year. Gather up your courage, dust off your resume, prepare yourself for an even better job, in better conditions, with a boss you respect.

Feeling sorry for yourself is the least productive thing you can do. It is also the most joyless, and totally out of sync with what the holidays are about. Not that you should rejoice over your monetary and other woes, but rather that you should take them in stride, knowing that you have the inner resources, the resilience, to make it through and on to better things.

As soon as you let go of “ain’t it awful” and plug into celebrating all the good you do have in your life, you too will find, like Jimmy Stewart, that “It’s a Wonderful Life”!

Geocache Your Way to Happy Holidays!

A friend introduced me recently to the wide wonderful world of Geocaching. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, Geocaching, according to Wikipedia, is: "…an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called 'geocaches' or 'caches,' anywhere in the world." And those containers are full of cool stuff, rarely worth much in monetary terms, but worth everything in terms of uniqueness, meaningfulness, and just plain fun.

You get a set of coordinates online, and with your trusty GPS device in hand, off you go on the adventure! You never know what you'll find, but it’s bound to be interesting and the search itself is exciting.

In other words, a treasure hunt! Updated to suit our technology, with all the fascination inherent to finding treasure.

That’s where the Happy Holidays come in. What if you treated this Holiday season like a Geocache adventure? What if you decided to be on the hunt for treasures of fun, and joy, and appreciation, and gratitude? What if you decided to be on the lookout for smiles, twinkles in people's eyes, enthusiasm?

And what if your GPS was the smile you offered--to one and all? The genuine, enthusiastic "Oh, it's sooo good to see you!" to friends and family? The compliment to a stranger, the bigger-than-usual tip to a server, the patience when in a too-long cashier’s line?

I guarantee that if you take on the Holidays with a GPS of happy, joyous, generous giving of self, you will find amazing Geocache treasures of joy and happiness throughout the Season.

Welcome to the Geocache adventure of the Holidays!