Most people experience stress during the holidays due to a lack of planning, poor time management, and financial worries. The holiday season does not have to be stressful or expensive. Follow these five strategies to reduce holiday stress:
- Plan and manage your time.
- Make preparations early.
- Think outside the box.
- Set a budget.
- Shop Online.
Plan and Manage Your Time:
Time to pull out the calendar and To-Do List. Make note of important dates and times such as picking up grandma from the airport, the company Christmas party, and/or your child’s school holiday program or class potluck. Set aside specific day(s) and times for shopping, cleaning, decorating, gift wrapping, and meal preparation. Add personal time for reading, relaxing, and/or self pampering for each day on your calendar. DO NOT under any circumstances skip personal time. One of the most important aspects of time management is making time for yourself!
Make Preparations Early:
If heavy cooking and entertaining is part of your holiday tradition prepare now. Write out your menu for your holiday feast and all meals proceeding the festivities. Make your grocery shopping list and stock the shelves, refrigerator, and freezer with everything you’ll need. (Blow the dust off your crockpot it will save you time and come in handy in preparing meals before the holiday).
If you have family traveling to spend the holidays with you, prepare the guestroom now. Get your house in order now, do not wait until the day before they arrive. If you start now you’ll discover all the quirks that need to be fixed like the loose doorknob, the protruding spring in the mattress, or cob webs and dust on the lamps (lol). Call in Molly Maids or pull out the duster, broom, mop, and gloves.
Think Outside the Box:
Don’t let money stress you out this holiday season. Gifts from the heart are priceless. Expensive gifts and material things are nice but thats not what gift giving is all about. Your time, energy, resources, knowledge, skills, and/or talents make wonderful gifts. You may not necessarily be able to wrap them in a box with a bow but you can certainly come up with creative innovative ways to present your time, energy, resources, knowledge, skills, and/or talents as gifts.
Set a Budget:
Determine how much you can afford to spend without going into the new year with debt from the holiday. Divide that number by the number of people on your shopping list. This is the amount of money your budget allows per person. As tempting as it may be to over spend or add people to your list that you may have over looked…the best gift you can give to yourself is to resist the urge and stick to your budget and original list. Buy a box of holiday cards and use those for the people that didn’t make the list this year (at least they’ll know you thought of them…its the thought that counts smile).
Shop Online:
Going to the mall and department stores during the holidays is stressful. Fighting traffic, finding a park, wrangling the crowds, and standing in long lines is exhausting. Avoid the hassles! Save time, money, and gas by shopping online. Many websites offer free and/or discounted shipping for the holidays. Now is the time to shop online so that your gifts arrive in time.
Happy Holidays 
This seems like a much stronger idea than what most of the population does – drinking the holiday stress away.
I am so stresed because of my exams, thankyou, this post helps!
Sad how people stress themselves but when you have gifts and bills it can certainly get to you…good tips on how to avoid the stress…just set a budget and stick to it
Nice post, nice tips!
Christmas should be fun and not a stress fest. So I am ditching a couple of our traditions in favour of my sanity.
Nice post. Thanks for all the tips. I think they are really great.
Good advice. This is really effective. thanks.
Hi Marenda,
You may laugh at this, but someone once told me their ultimate stress-reducing holiday tip.
To save money on gifts during holiday season he simply fell out with all his family and friends, and then made up with them thereafter. He swore by this mantra soI guess it worked for him.
shopping online definitely reduces stress and you get all that you want just sitting at your home. even mobiles are pretty helpful in the online shopping. thanks for such gadgets.
whenever I plan for travel it fails, For the last time I will plan on your advice. Lets see what happens!!!
Holiday should be fun and it should not be stress fest…Prepare everything before going out for holiday….It is mainly meant to reduce the stress and enjoy your holiday…Doing it everything on time which is the best way to reduce stress…
As well as saving money on gifts by shopping online, many food producers also now will deliver goods to your door. So for your holiday feast you can order excellent quality food produce online (at discounted direct prices) and have it delivered to your door, so all you have to do is the cooking! But overall holiday time should be fun for everyone (including the organiser) so chill out a bit and worry less about the details and it should work out fine
Have a look at Davina McCall Naked on the beach, can't belive she'd be so stupid!
http://www.voyeurmomentclips.com/davinamccallnake…
Information you have posted here about How to Reduce Holiday Stress is really very beneficial to me. Really you have done a good job. The written style is very prompt and the highly practical manners. So fruitful for us.
Information you have posted here about How to Reduce Holiday Stresss and tips for that is really very beneficial to me. Really you have done a good job. The written style is very prompt and the highly practical manners. So fruitful for us.
Thanks for giving such a wonderful tips on how to avoid stress…I am so stressed bcoz of holiday …..It's really helpful for me…..I think it's a great tips…..
online shopping is far much better than traditional shopping. you need not to go somewhere. to shop… just tell them the size and modelll .. you will get each and every thing at your doorstep