10 Tips to Help with Positivity During the Holidays
The holidays can be a wonderful time of year. There are lots of festive activities, gathering of friends and family, big holiday meals and a whole season of celebrations. But there is also a long list of shopping, decorating, baking, travel, and an exhaustive schedule of commitments that can make the holiday quite stressful for many people. How can you balance the holiday joys and stressors to maintain your positivity? Here are ten tips to help you have a great holiday season.
1. Maintain Your Self-Care Routine
Between the time off from work, traveling to see family, and all the extra activities, it’s easy to fall out of our regular routines around the holidays. While it’s a great time to indulge in some of those tasty holiday treats, it’s important to maintain those healthy habits that you worked so hard to establish during the rest of the year. Make sure to prioritize your self-care habits like exercise, mediation, and hydration. You’ll have a much easier time fighting off those holiday blues if you’re feeling healthy and energized.
2. Get Organized
There is so much to do during the holidays. Between baking, decorating, and trying to best gifts, it can quickly feel like you’re pulled in too many directions at once. Before getting dizzy, try to spend some time planning out what you want to do and prioritization. Make a list for each activity of what you need before you start. You’ll save a lot of time if you don’t need to stop in the middle of that cookie recipe to get more sugar or have to postpone an afternoon of wrapping gifts because you ran out of ribbon and paper mid-way through.
3. Set Realistic Expectations
We want our holidays to be perfect, the perfect gifts, the perfect decorations, and to host the perfect parties. But setting our expectations so high can result in a lot of extra anxiety. Let go of the need for perfectionism. Check your expectations that you are not setting yourself for unnecessary stress, and try to enjoy the season instead.
4. Focus on Creating Positive Memories
For some people, past holidays may not have been the most joyous times in their lives. Others become overly focused on their regrets from not accomplishing what they desired as part of the reflection at year’s end. It’s important to remember that the holiday experiences you create now will be your future holiday memories. Focus on giving yourself opportunities to create positive experiences for this season, and you’ll be able to enjoy the holidays more now and into the future.
5. Prepare Positive Conversation Topics
Between the family gatherings and work holiday parties, the holidays can mean a lot of time enjoying the company of others. But what happens when you run into a Scrooge that spends their time complaining or dragging you into their arguments and negativity? Before you feel your positive mood slipping away, plan a few uplifting conversation topics in advance. Then you can try to steer the conversation accordingly and keep the mood positive for both you and the people that you’re with.
6. Ask for Help
The holidays can mean a lot of things that need accomplishing. There may be year-end work assignments, additional childcare due to school closures, and of course, all the holiday planning. But don’t try to manage everything alone. Delegate some of the responsibilities where possible. Try giving children special holiday jobs. Perhaps ask a teen to wrap presents for other family members or a younger child to divide the cookies into gift plates equally. Not only does it help spread out the work, but it can help everyone feel more included and part of the holiday preparations.
7. Donate to Charity
Though charity is important year-round, the holidays and winter months can be particularly challenging times for many. Lots of great organizations do holiday donation drives. And science has shown that when we give to charity, it makes us happier. Giving our time or money to others makes us feel more positive.
8. Make Homemade Gifts / Décor
With all the pressure around holiday presents, there can be a lot of anxiety around finding a unique gift for everyone on your list. Homemade gifts can be much more meaningful because they are made for a specific person and tailored to their tastes and preferences. They may also be less expensive, taking some of the financial stress off the holidays. Crafting is also scientifically shown to lower our stress and anxiety, as well as boost our self-confidence.
9. Take time off yourself
With the extra stresses, it’s vital to take some time off for yourself to unwind and relax during the holidays. Feeling rested and refreshed will make you more resilient and better able to tackle all the holiday stressors. And taking some R&R will leave you in a positive mindset.
10. Try Starting Some New Traditions
There are so many ways to celebrate the holidays. It’s nice to reminiscence and re-live traditions that have been passed down through the family. But it’s also important to create new traditions with your current circle of friends and family. Try mixing things up, introduce your new friends into your family traditions, and try some of theirs for your family. Try a cookie swap with neighbors or take a family drive to see a holiday light display, plan for some family crafting activities or a day at a soup kitchen. Add a scavenger hunt to a family party, or pick some new holiday movies to mix into your routine.
How are you feeling about this holiday season? What’s your plan to stay positive? Let me know!
