With the cost-of-living crisis in full swing many families are feeling the stress this Christmas. If you’re dreading Christmas, rather than joyfully anticipating it, it might be time to take steps to reduce festive stress.
Reduce gift giving for a lower-stress Christmas
Some relationships thrive on the exchange of gifts. But in other cases, we can find ourselves giving and receiving things that are ultimately unwanted. Ideally, talk about gift giving with your family before everyone starts Christmas shopping. Subjects to raise include gift lists, cash gifts, experiences, consumable gifts and charity donations. You could also talk about second-hand or re-gifted items. Ask crafty people about handmade gifts – some are keen to give what they’ve made; others less so.
Keep a Christmas record to reduce overwhelm
Keeping notes about your Christmas activities can be helpful. Christmas shopping lists and records will help to keep spending under control. It’s a good way of stopping that cold feeling that you haven’t bought ‘enough’ for one child, too. Also, your Christmas notes about food, decorations or activities can be useful in future years, too.
Say no to festive events that leave you cold
Just because you’ve always done something doesn’t mean you have to go on doing it. If you don’t fancy ice skating, carols, midnight mass, the pantomime, Christmas cake, it’s fine to say ‘not this year’.
Delegate Christmas tasks
If there’s a Christmas job you dread, make it a social event. Rather than doing gift wrapping, food prep or baking alone, break open a festive treat and get a few extra hands involved. Doing a task together will make it easier; and it counts as quality time.
Declutter for a low-stress Christmas house
Your home doesn’t have to be perfect to be festive. Having a quick declutter before Christmas will making putting up the decorations more joyful. It will also give you more room for new possessions, activities, and people. A trip to the household waste site can work wonders for your morale, as can passing on possessions that you no longer need to people who will enjoy them. And if you’ve got some things that you know you’ll want in future – like summer clothing, or sports equipment, for example – put them into storage outside your house to gain more space to enjoy your home at Christmas.
If you’re worried about budgeting at Christmas and are not sure how much it is to rent a storage unit, we recommend getting a few quotes – we’ve got a guide to working out storage costs that may be of use. Many storage companies will let you rent for a short period; and when you insure your stored goods with Store and Insure, we charge by the day so you’ll never be paying to insure goods that aren’t stored.
Ask for help at Christmas
Organisations and charities that care for people know well that Christmas can be a breaking point. With normal services closed or running reduced hours, it can be hard to know where to turn in a crisis. Make a list of any services you use, and note their Christmas opening hours so that you’re not caught short. The charity Mind has some great Christmas coping tips as well as a directory of useful contacts.
