Christmas Stress Relief
See also: Avoiding and Managing Stress for the rest of the year.Christmas can be a very stressful time of year. For many the Christmas holiday period is a mass of complex social interactions with family or relatives, some of whom you may rather not see.
There could well be expectations, or at least perceived expectations, to create a ‘wonderful Christmas’ with presents and perhaps the most important meal of the year.
Some people rate Christmas as being more stressful than divorce or being burgled. We don't want to add to the stress and have deliberately avoided putting images of holly, robins, snowmen or anything else Christmassy on this page!
The page does, however, provide some tips and advice to make your Christmas as stress-free as possible. Don't let the festive season get you down: follow the tips and advice you find here, relax and enjoy yourself.
Plan Ahead
Start making a list of things you need to do for Christmas early: for example, shopping, food and presents, decorations, seating plans or travel arrangements. Make the list as detailed as possible, include people’s phone numbers or email addresses to make contacting them simpler.
If it's already too late, bookmark this page ready for next year and set yourself a reminder to do this in mid-November.
Try to prioritise the items on your list: can they be done now, and are they essential? Do not overestimate how much you can achieve on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Many recipes can, at least in part, be made ahead of time and frozen thus reducing tasks in the immediate run-up to Christmas Day.
Delegate the responsibility for certain tasks to other family members since this will reduce your workload. Keep your list for next year; it’ll need tweaking and updating but will give you reminders of the sorts of things you need to think about.
See our pages: Time Management and Delegation Skills for more ideas of how to get organised and prioritise your tasks and time.
TOP TIP! Order ahead of time
Christmas food, especially turkeys or joints of meat, often has to be ordered in advance. Check with your butcher or supermarket to see if this is essential, and make sure that you get your order in before the deadline.
It is also worth ordering any foods that you particularly want ahead of time. This might include particular types of sweets, or anything that has become a ‘family tradition’.
Shop Online
Shopping locally has many advantages. However, High Street shopping just before Christmas can be extremely stressful. It is often cold and wet (in the UK anyway) and there are likely to be hundreds of other stressed people also trying to find the ‘perfect’ gift.
Consider shopping online from the comfort of your own home instead of going out. You will save time and be less stressed, and may even save money too. If you are prepared to start early, many of the big retailers have ‘Black Friday’ sales even outside the US, so you may find some bargains. Always make sure you buy from reputable online retailers and check that they can deliver before the big day.
See our page on Online Shopping and Payments for more tips about how to avoid problems when shopping online.
If you haven’t already tried it, you may also be able to do your food shopping online and have it delivered directly to your door. Remember to book your delivery slot early though, because the prime delivery slots may well be booked early. Most of the big supermarkets in the UK release their ‘Christmas’ slots in mid-November.
TOP TIP! Try ‘Click and Collect’
If you can’t get a delivery slot at your preferred time for either food or other purchases, check whether there is a ‘click and collect’ option instead. These are often more flexible, but still avoid the hassle of having to walk around crowded shops.
Budgeting for Christmas
Christmas can be a financial headache. Many of us find ourselves paying off the credit bills well into the new year. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Consider:
Putting aside a small amount every week or month into a dedicated ‘Christmas’ account for use for presents and/or Christmas food;
Saving up any supermarket ‘points’ to use for the Christmas food;
If your family Christmas present buying is getting very expensive, suggest an alternative. For example, you might agree to buy presents only for the children, or to do a ‘secret Santa’, where each person only buys for one other person;
Set a maximum price per Christmas present or per person to limit your spending; and
Buy early—and not just in November. Many retailers have pre-Christmas sales, but you may also find bargains in the summer sales, or even the post-Christmas sales for next year.
Christmas Cards
If you plan to send Christmas cards, it’s a good idea to s tart writing them early too!
Many people receive and send lots of cards at Christmas time so start in mid-November, if you can, and write a few cards and envelopes each day keeping them to one side before posting or delivering.
However, there is increasingly a trend for people to send either a mass email, or a message on social media, in place of Christmas cards. The general feeling is that when everyone is in touch on social media, there is little point in sending specific Christmas greetings by post. Instead, people may choose to donate to charity, or simply send a few cards to those not using social media. This can considerably lighten the load in November and December.
Know When to Stop
Decide when you will stop your Christmas preparations and start to relax and enjoy the holiday. Work towards and try to stick to this goal, even if it is in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Remember that Christmas is your holiday too.
Christmas Day and Beyond
The planning doesn’t stop on Christmas Eve. If you are planning a big meal, such as a turkey with all the trimmings, you will need to plan the cooking quite carefully. It is unlikely that you will be able to fit everything in the oven at once. Have a schedule that sets out what you need to do over the course of the day, to reduce your stress, and ensure that you can delegate tasks to helpful visitors.
There are other things that you can also do to reduce your stress on the day.
Keep Calm
Play some relaxing music, perhaps seasonal carols, and burn some scented candles, incense or aromatherapy oil.
See our pages: Relaxation Techniques including Aromatherapy for some advice about how to relax.
Seating Arrangements
If there is someone coming to dinner that you dislike, avoid sitting opposite them and instead seat them to one side and opposite somebody who they get on with better. Invite a few more reasonable people along as it will help dilute any stress caused by relatives. It’s a case of the more the merrier!
Turkey
If you are planning on cooking a bird then turkey or pheasant are good choices. They both contain tryptophan which our bodies use to make serotonin, a powerful brain-calming chemical.
Have Decaffeinated Coffee
When your body is under stress it produces cortisol which prepares you for ‘fight or flight’ situations. Caffeine does too; see our article: Stress, Nutrition and Diet for more information.
Offer everybody decaffeinated coffee and tea, or herbal tea alternatives, since this will help keep the stress levels down and has the added bonus that people may fall asleep after dinner!
Practise Breathing
When we’re stressed our heart beat increases and our breathing shallows, it’s all part of the fight or flight reaction. Work on reversing this process and take time to breathe deeply.
Breathe in deeply through your nose, hold for 15 or 20 seconds and then breathe slowly out through your mouth, repeat for a few minutes to instantly help reduce stressful feelings.
See our pages on Relaxation Techniques and Stress Management for more.
Have a 'Great Escape' Plan!
It's a good idea to have some pre-planned excuses to escape from proceedings if they get too stressful.
Be imaginative and use things such as leaving the room to make a phone-call to a friend or perhaps checking on a neighbour. A short walk for some fresh air can also be justified after a large meal or “to work up an appetite”. Just by having planned a couple of escape routes you’ll probably feel less stressed anyway but actually leaving the situation, even for 10 minutes, will help clear your mind and relax you.
Even if things don’t get particularly stressful, it’s still a good idea to have some quiet time built into the day—and this applies to everyone. If you’re hosting, ensure that there are spaces where people can go to ‘get away’, including you.
Sleep Well
Lack of sleep can make you feel irritable and more prone to feeling stressed.
Christmas often means late nights and early mornings, especially if children are involved, so your normal sleep routine may be reduced. In the northern hemisphere the days are short and with less natural light we produce more melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate our body clock and sleep-wake cycle. Unless we can sleep, more melatonin means we are more likely to feel tired, grumpy stressed
Eating lots of rich foods and drinking alcohol can also disturb your sleep, not to mention Santa coming down the chimney in the middle of the night!
Our page How to Sleep has lots of further information to help you improve your sleep hygiene and get a better night's sleep.
Make Time for Exercise
Christmas is, for many, a time of excessive eating and drinking and exercise can be easily overlooked. Diets and gym memberships are particularly popular in January! Exercise is a great way to reduce stress as it burns off hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and helps produce mood-enhancing endorphins. Try going for a walk after dinner as the fresh air and exercise will lift your mood and make you feel better.
See our page: The Importance of Exercise for more information.
Avoid Excessive Alcohol
Most de-stressing articles will tell you to avoid alcohol altogether but, let’s be realistic, it is Christmas! However, do avoid excessive alcohol as it dehydrates your body and makes your liver work overtime to process it, alcohol can also hinder quality sleep.
Drink as much water or juice as alcohol as this will help you to stay hydrated, feel better and therefore cope better with stressful situations. You'll also feel better on Boxing Day.
Operate Moment to Moment
If you find Christmas Day especially stressful, try a technique advocated to manage anxiety: operating moment to moment. Simply deal with each moment (or ten minutes, or half an hour, as you feel able) as it comes. If you become stressed, take a few minutes out to breathe deeply and calm down again.
Be Realistic
Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect. If you don’t have time to buy those sweets, cook that particular side dish, or decorate the table exactly as you wanted, the world will not end. And if anyone comments, there is a simple answer: “Great, perhaps you would like to do that next year!”
Be assertive in how you respond to any criticism or negative comments, and ensure that you stand up for yourself politely but firmly.
- There is more about this in our pages on assertiveness.
Have Fun!
Remember it’s your Christmas too so try to relax and have fun, laugh and be merry. If you do find others around you difficult then try to rise above the situation. If things don’t go to plan try not to worry too much, instead laugh about them and make them into fun memories that you can talk about during Christmases to come. "Remember that time Mum set fire to the sprouts!".
Have a great, stress-free, Christmas break!