The media bombards us with images of the perfect holiday season starting before Halloween and lasting through Christmas. They show us everything from perfect holiday meals and table settings, to joy filled family gatherings, the best gifts to purchase for your loved ones to prove the depth of your love, and the most artful holiday decorations and gift wrapping.
Of course what the media doesn’t tell us is how to fit the hundreds of hours of preparation into our already full schedules.
As a result instead of feeling joy, gratitude, love or peace when the holidays arrive, you end up feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and grateful they are almost over for another year!
Whose Expectations
When you are trying to live up to someone else’s expectations, especially when they are unrealistic expectations, the results are rarely what you expect.
Make the decision today to approach this holiday season with a different set of rules. Watch this 5 minute video for some strategies that will support you in that decision.
How to Enjoy the Holidays
With the three strategies given in the video, be willing to compromise. Everyone will enjoy the holidays more if they feel they have a say and are getting at least some of their needs and desires met.
Finding Joy in Compromise
For example, one of my favorite parts of the holiday is enjoying our decorated tree. During one of the weekends in December, we head out as a family to a local Christmas tree farm. Together we find and cut down a tall Frasier Fir and bring it home.
Once we have it home and in the house we decorate it with many, many strands of lights and then with my collection of glass ornaments. The division of labor in the past has been that Dave is in charge of putting up the lights with direction from me and I am responsible for doing the decorating.
The problem with this system is that it takes hours to get the lights on the tree, especially since I started out with very high standards.
So although the tree looks incredible when it is done, it ends up being Dave’s least favorite part of all the holiday preparations.
Since what I really want from the holidays is to enjoy the time with family, even if it means not having a perfect Christmas tree, I have been lowering my standards with regard to decorations and we have been experimenting with ways to make this process less painful for Dave. It is still a work in progress, but with compromise I know we will find a solution that works for both of us!
Your Assignment
Take some time to get clear about what is really important to you this holiday season. Write down a list of activities that give you the feelings you desire from the holiday season. Be honest with yourself especially if those activities don’t typically make it onto your holiday list.
Once you have your list of what you will do, come back here and share one thing that you are going to stop doing this holiday season. What tradition are you ready to release? What tradition secretly drives you crazy or frustrates the heck out of you? Share it here and then make a commitment to just say no this year.
Warmly,
Stacy & Dave
