Tips for Keeping Holiday Stress at Bay

Wherever I am these days, I hear fellow moms complain about the lack of available time to prepare for the upcoming holidays. “I haven’t even had a chance to get to the first item on my to-do list yet,” one mom recently said at a luncheon while another chimed in with “I haven’t even had time to write my list yet.”

Well, I’m bound and determined to not join in the race for busiest mom.  From internet shopping (for both groceries and gifts) to teenage manpower, I’m taking advantage of all the help I can get!

I have slowly reached this level of zen as I’m fully realizing that my kids are growing up fast (too fast) and that I don’t want to wish away these awesome and precious family moments. Here’s how I’ve learned to keep holiday stress to a minimum:

• Delegate Chores:
  • All holiday decorating is done together as a family or it won’t be done at all. From the outside hanging of lights to the inside primping and grooming, everyone is responsible for their share. If we lived in a perfect world, we’d accomplish assigned tasks together while humming Christmas songs. In my imperfect world, we decorated the tree to the roar of the Vikings game, but nevertheless, the tree is done and it looks as serene as I feel on the inside.
• Buy Services:
  • With all the hoopla and entertaining of Christmas, my cleaning people come weekly to minimize my stress and keep the home looking festive and clean.
  • All my groceries are ordered online, keeping my trips to the grocery store few and far between.
  • My kids were asked to write down their few favorite Christmas gift wishes, and luckily, most could be ordered online and are currently awaiting wrapping (another shared task between my husband and me).
• Keep my Perfectionist Expectations to a Minimum:
  • In order to get every family member to chip in time and effort, my biggest job is to not have an agenda about what the outcome has to look like. My Christmas tree is decorated to the nines with more ornaments than I personally prefer, but I’ve learned to keep my comments to myself. “WOW, this is the prettiest tree I’ve ever seen,” I say instead.
  • The Christmas cookies my son and daughter baked (from scratch) and decorated with mounds of frosting are probably close to uneatable, but the festive food coloring and the mounds of laughter are captured in my heart and on film  (And lucky for me, Coborns Delivers has a great selection of Christmas cookies which will add to our homemade assortment).

And though you won’t find me complaining about the stresses of the holiday season, you may find me bent over the dessert table at the next social gathering, scrambling for just one more homemade cookie NOT made by my offspring!

Tags: Avoiding Holiday Stress, CobornsDelivers, Tips for Keeping Holiday Stress Low

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