25 Days til Christmas

Here we are - 25 days until Christmas! Okay, how did that statement make you feel? Did you get excited? Did you start to stress out or panic?

If it just made you feel good and get excited that Christmas is coming then great! Enjoy your holiday season.

If you started to panic or get stressed out, then read on.

I remember when my husband and I were first married. The first couple Christmases were interesting. We would wait for my annual blow-up, then set up a plan, make some choices and enjoy ourselves. Now I start with the plan and the choices, skip the blow-up, and enjoy my entire holiday season.

One of the keys I've found to keeping the fun in Christmas is making some key choices. Sometimes these are obvious and fairly easy. Sometimes they are difficult, and not a lot of fun. But making the choices gets the painful moment out of the way so that you can enjoy yourself. When you don't choose, you just live in the pain through the whole season, and you don't spread much Christmas cheer on your way.

Last year we were about 2 weeks from Christmas and I started getting stressed. I stopped and thought about what was on my mental to-do list and realized that accomplishing everything on that list meant I would be running every waking moment. I would not have time to cuddle up and read a book with my kids. I would rush through baking cookies and working on presents with my family, and that wasn't okay with me. For me, a huge part of the joy in Christmas is preparing for it with my family. So I just looked at my list, chose a couple of the least important things, and cut them out.

I only sent about a half dozen Christmas cards to a few people who I really wanted to have one, and I didn't put up every Christmas decoration known to man. I didn't clean as much as I usuallly do before putting up the decorations (I do get a little nuts about that and my family was relieved to skip some of it.) and we chose not to put lights on our huge pine tree.

What happened? We had more time to spend on the things that really matter to us. The kids got to help with all the outdoor lights (the pine tree is over 25 feet tall so Dad usually ends up doing those) and the people who didn't get Christmas cards survived. We had more fun, spread more joy to others, and stayed focused on the real meaning of Christmas.

Make this December a joyful and memorable time.

For specific strategies and tools to use in creating a Heart Filled Holiday check out the articles on my website.