The festive season can offer families the wonders of ritual and connection with loved ones near and far, in addition to a well-earned break and a chance to relax outside of the confines of work and school routines.  For those of us with a religious or spiritual practice, this time of year also can offer opportunities to reconnect with the deeper meaning of our lives and nourish our relationship with the sacred.

Many families also find that the stress of planning events, gifts and holidays can also creep up on us and get to a point where we feel completely overwhelmed.  Many children are sensitive to the emotional “weather” of home life and do not always have the language to share with parents how the knock-on effects of festive season stress are impacting them.  Particularly in the case of younger children, they may show us they are stressed by acting out with big or uncharacteristic behaviours.  

To help with managing overwhelm during this time of year, here is some advice from Joshua Becker, author of Things That Matter, about four common “traps” that families can easily fall into during the festive season.  He describes the four traps as follows:

“You react to the spending trap by buying gifts you can’t afford because everyone else is spending big, putting purchases on the credit card with a vague plan to ‘figure it out later.’

You react to the gift trap by scrambling to find the perfect present for everyone on your ever-growing list, stressing out about whether it’s enough, whether they’ll like it, and whether you’ll be judged for it.

You react to the time trap by saying yes to every invitation, every event, every tradition, because you don’t want to disappoint anyone, even though you’re disappointing yourself by missing the quiet moments that actually matter.

You react to the décor trap by pulling out every box from the attic because that’s what you’ve always done, spending hours decorating spaces you don’t even use, feeling obligated to maintain (or add to) a display that exhausts you instead of delights you.

But when you plan ahead for a simpler holiday instead of reacting to expectations, everything changes.  And the best time to plan?  Right now—before the chaos begins.”

(Source:  Simplify Magazine).