The holiday season usually brings with it a mix of emotions. Although it is a time that we usually look forward to, since we have the opportunity to take a break and spend time with friends and family, it is easy for stress or overwhelm to also make an appearance at some point.
According to this study According to the American Psychological Association, almost nine out of ten adults feel worry and stress during these dates for reasons such as not having enough money, missing their loved ones and anticipating family conflicts. However, it is possible to enjoy a stress-free holiday, despite it being one of the busiest times of the year.
How to organize yourself to have more bearable parties
Whether you’re organizing Christmas for the family, having to invite other people over for the holidays, or juggling work with childcare, among many other tasks, you probably have a long list for these days: gifts to buy, events to attend, friends to meet, menu plans to make and a long etcetera. It’s a lot concentrated in a few days. But you can have a good Christmas season if you organize yourself well.
A good part of success is focusing on what is urgent and making a list of the tasks you have to do. There is no point in starting with those that will take up a lot of your time and that are not even urgent.
Shopping stress
For many, one of the main challenges of these holidays is facing expenses that will probably take a few weeks to pay off. Between purchases, potential trips, and unforeseen expenses, the footprint on your bank account can be huge.
According to this survey According to the OCU, this year the Christmas expenditure per person will be 683 euros, a budget that is allocated mainly to food and celebrations with friends and family, although more than half of the budget will be allocated to buying gifts. However, Christmas doesn’t have to be a financial headache if we plan and approach it strategically:
- Calculate an approximate and realistic budget of the expected expenses: here we include not only gifts, but also food bills and other incidentals.
- Plan ahead: Although you may not have time to do this now, for the next few years it can help you to make a list of recipients and allocate a budget for each of them and start shopping early. This will help you stay on budget and take advantage of deals and discounts.
- Calculate how much money you have available until Christmas: with this calculation done, dedicate a percentage to cover the expected expenses.
- Make a list of everything you have to buy: if you don’t do it and hope to get inspired when you’re already in the store, you may end up wandering around pointlessly and buying things that, deep down, you didn’t want. And you will also make sure that what you buy is useful. There is a statistics quite revealing collected in the documentary The history of things according to which only 1% of the products we buy are still used six months later.
- Write down all the gifts you buy: it is very easy to lose sight of what we have bought and hidden in the closet. You can keep a log, paper or digital, to write everything down.
- If the savings are not enough, we will have to recalculate the Christmas budget to something more realistic and establish a limit on the cost of gifts for each person, especially if you have a large family.
- Start wrapping gifts early: the days leading up to Christmas will be busy; If you don’t want to spend the night of December 24th wrapping gifts, it’s best to start as soon as possible.
Overwhelmed by the preparation of the celebrations
Preparing food for everyone can be a pleasant but exhausting and stressful experience at the same time. To avoid accumulated stress you can follow the following tips:
- Delegate tasks: it is not necessary to make everything fall on us and do everything. Asking others for help allows us to relieve our workload and will help us enjoy the moment more. You can save the template of how you have organized yourself for years to come; Although it may require some adjustments and updates, it will serve as a reminder of the kinds of things you should think about and commit to.
- Lower expectations and enjoy the meetings: we don’t have to prove to anyone that we are the best at everything, in organizing meals or that we are the best cooks. The important thing is the meetings with our people, enjoying them and being relaxed.
- Bet on shared meals: if the organization of the meal overwhelms you, why not turn it into a meeting in which everyone participates? Each guest can bring a dish, which lightens the host’s load and allows them to enjoy a varied meal.
Socialization management
For many people, especially if they are introverts, having several social encounters concentrated in a few days can be complicated to manage. And the Christmas period exposes us to greater social expectations: visiting family, parties or interacting with people you don’t see often. So that this does not take its toll, it is recommended:
- Set boundaries and communicate them kindly and early enough so everyone can get organized.
- Make a list of the things you want to do: going back to lists, we usually make them to write down everything we have to do (shopping, gifts…), boring things that we don’t usually feel like doing very much. But we can make more fun lists if we write down the things we do want to do, like watch a movie, read a book we’ve had waiting on the shelf for a while, or meet up with someone we haven’t seen in a while.
- Think about yourself, too: amidst all the hustle and bustle of the entire holiday season, scheduling some time for yourself will help you recharge your batteries.
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