Most people love the festive period with the build-up and all the excitement in the run up to the big day. Of course, spending the Christmas season enjoying quality time with your loved ones as well. It’s a wonderful time but it can also be very stressful for those who oversee all the planning and organising. That’s a job that often lands on the mothers.
The good news is there are lots of things that you can do to make Christmas less stressful. So you too can focus more on enjoying yourself and spending time with your family instead.
Get Yourself Organised
The first thing you need to do to reduce Christmas stress, is to get organised. Choose the way you’re most comfortable. Whether it’s a notes app on your phone (handy because you can access and edit it from wherever you are). Classic to-do lists on paper, or even a dedicated Christmas planning notebook if you’re feeling extra festive.
To feel organised and in charge, you need to get all those to-dos out of your head and written down. Make lists of everyone you would like to buy a present for. Along with any gift ideas you already have. Shopping lists and meal plans for the Christmas dinner and the festive period. Plus anything else you need to buy or sort out before Christmas, like some new Christmas decorations perhaps. Once it’s written down on paper or on your phone, you can let your mind relax a bit. This should immediately reduce your stress levels massively and help you feel in control. Which should allow you to actually enjoy the process of organising Christmas.
Declutter Your Home
Christmas usually comes with added stuff which can quickly clutter your home if you haven’t made space for them beforehand. Clutter can be a huge stress trigger for many of us. So it’s important to be proactive and have a decluttering session before the holiday season. Making sure you have space for anything new that comes into your home over the holidays.
It’s not just the incoming Christmas presents (though it is a great idea to have a toy clear-out if you have kids and donate anything that they are no longer interested in). Also things like the extra food and drinks, and of course the Christmas tree and festive decorations. All these things take up space and if you’ve decluttered beforehand, you’ll be able to enjoy your home all the more. With all of your Christmas treats on display for everyone to enjoy and tuck in to.
Get Prepared Early
There are lots of things you can do to prepare for Christmas to make things easier and less stressful. In the kitchen, try to use up things you have in the fridge, freezer, and cupboards to make more space for the yummy Christmas food shop. You can also start buying non-perishable items since the shops have lots of Christmas stock already. This will help spread the cost and will make the shopping more manageable too.
When you’ve bought a Christmas present, write it down on your list along with who it’s for and wrap it straight away. Put a name tag on it and put it away. Then it’s done and you don’t need to factor in the time needed for a big present wrapping session right before Christmas. You could even get all of your festive decorations out of the loft earlier to make sure things like lights work.
Christmas Decorations
One of the best things you get do early on is to go through your Xmas decorations. If there’s anything broken – get rid of it. If there’s anything you’re missing – get it replaced. Check if things need new batteries and whether or not you need to get more to keep you going throughout the festive season.
Then go through your sets of lights. Do any of the bulbs need changing? Do all the sets you have work and have the correct plugs attached? It’s also a good idea to check if you have enough extension cables for all your lighting wants this year – the tree, any light up garlands…etc. One thing we always forget to do is to check whether we have enough hooks for our outside lighting. The hooks that clip on to the guttering are a game changer when putting up your outside Christmas lights.
If you don’t have your Xmas lights yet then these lights from Amazon are great. They come on a roll so they’re easy to store and ready to go when you want to use them. This set are 50m long and a warm white light that look fab in the garden. However, they can also be used indoors as well – on your tree perhaps if it’s a big one!
Delegate Tasks
When it comes to the final preparations (or any before that if you wish), remember that you can – and should – delegate tasks too. Remind yourself that Christmas is not YOUR responsibility. The whole family and any other people who are involved should help too. This could be by making some of the food, doing some of the shopping, getting the decorations up or helping to declutter and clean the house. Christmas is a family event that we should prepare for and celebrate together.
All the pressure and tasks should not land on just one person to sort out. Delegate tasks as you see fit to ensure your stress levels are low and to enable you to enjoy the preparations and the festivities without feeling rushed and anxious. For example, if you don’t enjoy putting up the festive decorations, get someone else to do it!
Another great way to take the stress off party organisers is to delegate to the professionals using Poptop Parties. On this platform, you can find and easily book everything you need for the perfect festive party: from delicious catering to professional musicians (including choirs and carol singers!), as well as fun photo booths and Murder Mystery events. The biggest advantage of the site is the availability calendar and instant quote feature. You no longer have to wait hours or days for quotes from suppliers, which saves a huge amount of time and reduces festive stress even further.
Conclusion
Use the ideas above to make Christmas less stressful and more enjoyable for yourself and your family. Get organised, take a bit of time to declutter your home, prepare what you can in advance and share the workload.
Lastly, Christmas isn’t just about the festive decorations. It’s about being together as a family and everything doesn’t have to be perfect so don’t worry about every little detail. The memories will be about how cosy it was spending the holidays together and how much fun you had, not how perfectly the gifts were wrapped or if the tree decorations were evenly distributed or not. As long as you’re happy and together, Christmas will be lovely.
Solid analysis of Christmas!