Avoid Stress this Christmas

Prepare a budget: Let’s face it—money is one of the biggest causes of Christmas-related headaches. This is especially true if you wait until Christmas Eve to buy your presents. Avoid the pain this year by sitting down and calculating how much Christmas is going to cost. This includes not only presents for friends and family but also costs such as travel and accommodation, food, alcohol, and wrapping paper and cards. Once you know how much things are going to cost, work diligently towards saving that amount of money. Consider opening a new account with your bank just for that purpose, and having automatic deductions from your pay to cover it.

Shop early, shop often: Looking for and purchasing your presents early means that you have the time to do some comparison shopping and to snag the best deal, while retailers have you over a barrel during the Christmas Eve sales. Buying presents now will also help your budget stay healthy as you only need to save up smaller amounts of money. Health and Harmony’s website has a wonderful range of products that make for excellent gifts.

Book flights and accommodation now: If you are going to travel for Christmas, it’s important to make sure that you can actually get where you need to go and will have somewhere to stay when you get there! If you haven’t already booked your travel tickets, make this your first priority. Similarly, if you’re not going to stay with family, make sure you have booked your accommodation. (If you are going to stay with family, make sure you have confirmed the arrangement with them!) Don’t forget to include in your budget secondary costs such as transport to and from airports or that nice bottle of wine to thank your aunt for the use of her guest room.

Do a spring clean now and maintain it: If you’re having friends and family over for Christmas, you’ll need to make sure the place is ready to receive them! Unfortunately, if you leave this task too long, you’ll have to clean while juggling other stressful tasks such as organising Christmas lunch and wrapping presents. Make your life easier instead by doing a thorough spring clean now and maintaining it until Christmas.

Mentally prepare yourself: It would be wonderful if we didn’t have to spend Christmases with relatives we don’t particularly like, or if nobody was allowed to spend Christmas alone. Unfortunately for some, Christmas means spending time with boorish relatives who disapprove of your life choices, or spending Christmas alone because of distance, family feuding, or other circumstances. In these cases, Christmas can be felt as something to be dreaded, not anticipated. If this applies to you, don’t ignore the situation: start thinking about positive mental techniques to get you through the holidays. For instance, you could rehearse some calm, but firm, responses to potential criticisms that might be aired by well-meaning but muddle-headed relatives. You could also take the initiative and call any troublesome relatives beforehand to discuss ways to avoid conflict on the day. If you fear that you might spend Christmas alone, reach out to a friend and explain the situation—it’s quite likely they will make room for you in their plans. If nothing eventuates and you do spend the day alone, make plans to get out of the house and do an activity, even if it is just to go for a walk in the park.