Ten Ways to Reduce Holiday Stress

Halloween is barely over, and we’re already inundated with holiday season goods. Since September, Christmas trees, decorations, and even Thanksgiving non-perishables have filled the aisles of stores. As children, we anticipated the holiday season with wonder and amazement. As adults, we long for those childhood feelings but find ourselves stressed to the max trying to fulfill all our holiday expectations and demands. Stop stressing and use the below tactics to declutter and reclaim your holiday.

Money is an enormous cause of stress. Whether it’s the holidays or a typical payday, departing with our hard-earned cash causes us anxiety. Many people go into immense debt over the holidays. Why? Because we’re living up to everyone else’s expectations.

Before the holidays, figure out exactly what you can spend and decide who and what you can spend it on. If you don’t have money for a $300 tree, buy a cheaper tree. Think about what you need versus what you want. You need gifts for your children. Your nieces and nephews that you haven’t seen in years? You don’t need to send them gifts.

Holidays should be about family. So, use your family members to help you upcycle your old decorations. Not only will you save money, but you will create memories and possibly even a new family tradition that brings you all closer.

There’s a reason the big box and grocery stores already have holiday meal items on display. They want you to buy them now, and that’s a great idea. Start purchasing your non-perishables now. It’s not like they’re going to go bad. Make a special section in your cabinets for the items you’ll need for Thanksgiving, the holidays, and New Year’s. This strategy spreads the expense of the holiday meals over time, creating less stress on your budget than buying the food all at once.

Purchasing your food items in advance is easier if you already know what you’re serving on the holidays. Plan out your meals and desserts. Write down what you need and put them in your daily planner or on your refrigerator for easy access. Then, create a checklist of items you’ll need, and tick them off as you purchase them.

If you are offering people the privilege of eating at your house, you still don’t have to foot the entire bill and take on the stress of cooking the meal. Growing up, there was anywhere from 11 to 24 people who ate at our house on holidays. It is OK to ask your guests to bring an item.

Do you want to reduce the stress of not knowing what they’ll bring? Assign your guests a food category such as dessert, side dish, appetizer, or drink. Then, let them know how many people are coming so they can bring an appropriate number of servings.

It’s possible some people may bring the same food items. If you want to avoid this occurrence you can assign a specific food item. It’s best to choose something you know the person is good at cooking.

Shopping for gifts is the worst part of the holiday season. You can barely move in the cluttered stores. People are abusing the retail workers, making the help grumpy, which irritates you. It’s a vicious cycle of unhappiness from store to store. Making matters worse, the must-have items are sold out by the time you finally get to the shelf they were on.

Thanks to that modern marvel the internet, you can relieve shopping anxiety by making your purchases online. Whether you go to Amazon, a privately-run online store, an Etsy shop, or ship-to-store from a major retailer, you avoid the stress and wasted time of in-store shopping. Make sure you order early enough to receive your gifts on time. Typically, these sites will tell you when is the last possible day you can buy and still get your items on time.

Everyone thinks people want physical gifts. That’s not true. The day after Christmas, when stores are overrun with disgruntled gift recipients returning unwanted items, is proof that a gift card is better.

Gift cards are great for both the giver and the receiver. The giver can spend less time in stores and better budget their money with no surprise hikes in cost or having to figure out the local, county, and state sales taxes. Most gift cards are located at the front of the store by the register so they’re super easy to get.

The receiver, on the other hand, can shop when they want for what they want. There are no long return lines at the customer service desk to ruin their day. Plus, they can make a shopping day with their friends or children, who also received gift cards, turning your gift into a fun outing.

Planning and booking your travel in advance isn’t only about saving cash. It also saves you the stress of running out of options. No one wants to spend the holidays in a crappy motel that smells of mold and has scratchy blankets. A multitude of people travel over the holidays, making obtaining reservations at decent hotels more difficult the longer you wait to book.

It’s not just the hotels that fill up fast, either. It also becomes harder to reserve plane seats and rental cars the longer you wait.

Be smart and book as early as possible.

Unless you know for a fact that you’ll be welcome to every meal at your host’s home for the duration of your stay, there’s a good chance you are going to spend a lot of money eating out. Even if you eat at McDonald’s, you’re spending around $10 per meal per person. At a sit-down restaurant, you’re probably spending more like $15 — $20 a meal plus an 18% minimum tip.

It may be more expensive to book a hotel room with a kitchenette or a suite, but purchasing some groceries and cooking or microwaving meals in your room is going to cost considerably less than eating out until the big holiday meal comes.

It’s no joke that gift wrapping can cause frustration and embarrassment, so stop wrapping. If you have the money, let the professionals at the stores wrap them for you. If you don’t have gift wrapping expenses in your budget, consider bagging your gifts.

Gift bags are an easy alternative to wrapping. Line the insides of the bag with tissue paper, place the gift in the bag, and wrap a ribbon or bow around the handles. That’s it. You’re done. No skill required. Oh, and most gift bags come with a card tag attached to them so you don’t need to worry about buying tags either.

Do you really know the 100 or so people you send cards to every year? Can you not call your family and wish them a happy holiday? Why do we waste money and trees on cards in our modern world?

We think cards are nice, but what do you do with the cards you receive in the mail? If you’re like most people you glance at them and then you put them on display. When you take your decorations down, most people throw away the cards. Sending cards is a waste.

Pick up the phone, Skype, Facetime, email, whatever. Talk to the people who matter the most. For the rest, they’re not going to appreciate the card as much as you think. So, don’t waste time and money on a card.

The holidays are stressful when you try to live up to society’s expectations. It’s time you stop making yourself crazy. You can enjoy the holidays better when you simplify your holiday.

It doesn’t matter if you celebrate Christmas, Channukah, Yule, Kwanza, or Festivus, the main part of these holidays is spending it with those who matter most to us: our family and friends. Don’t lose sight of the real reason for the season because of retailers who want you to end their fiscal year on a high note.

You matter, and you deserve to cut the unnecessary stress out of your holiday season so you can enjoy yourself and your family. If you examine your holiday habits, you will find ways to cut out stress and insert happiness. So, go ahead, make those changes and reclaim your holiday joy.

Related posts:

In the beginning there was nothing, the universe replied. No time, no space, no dark no light, not even a beginning itself. I was here now; I was there, everywhere and nowhere. It toke me there…

Are you looking for ways to make extra money in 2023? A side hustle can be a great way to supplement your income and achieve your financial goals.

Writing small functions and refactoring long methods into smaller ones can have numerous benefits for your codebase. First, small functions are generally easier to understand and reason about than…