So, it’s January and you are looking back on the holidays feeling a ton of emotions. Most of what you are feeling is relief that it is all over. Every year you want the holidays to be magical and enjoyable, but somehow every year they end up feeling overwhelming.

Many years ago, I went to a family member’s house for Thanksgiving. I went into the situation excited to spend time with this person. Unfortunately, the situation didn’t turn out like I had hoped.

My family member barely paid attention to me and I was left to talk to a bunch of people I didn’t know. I remember walking out of that situation thinking, “why did I stay so long?” It was after that experience that I started evaluating why during the holidays I continue to put myself in situations that I know I am not going to enjoy.

What is frustrating about the holidays is so many of us feel this obligation to put ourselves in places with people we do not want to or wouldn’t normally. Or we feel obligated to go celebrate because it’s our in laws, friends, or whoever.

Unfortunately, no one ever tells us that we don’t have to participate in anything we don’t want to. Afterall, the holidays are a time to come together with the people you love the most and continue traditions or make new ones.

Furthermore, this is the time to celebrate the amazing Father who created us and died on a cross for us all.

This time of year shouldn’t put you into a panic. Having to do mental gymnastics on how you are going to get through this dinner or how you are going to handle having that many people in your house. Or whatever other mental and emotional battles you have once the holidays start getting close.

With all of this said, I wanted to create this blog to talk about 3 steps to implement into your future holiday planning to help you look back on your holiday season with happiness.

1.      BOUNDARIES!

This is a topic that I discuss all of the time! I even wrote an entire blog post about boundaries. So, I encourage you to go over and read it because it will give you all of the tools to implement boundaries into your life. To find that blog post click here.

Having boundaries in everything you do in life is so important. Without boundaries the people in your life have no idea how to treat you. Which inevitably will lead them to treat you how they think is fitting. How does this tie into the holidays you ask? Let me explain.

One of the populations I specialize in is couples. It never fails that around the holidays couples come to me with issues on how they are going to navigate them. These issues occur because they don’t have any boundaries created.

Here are some examples of different issues couples have discussed with me. One spouse/partner has a divorced family so that means the couple has three places to go instead of two.

One of the spouses/partners parents has unrealistic demands of the couple when coming to their house. I have also had a couple that wanted to spend Christmas morning with just their immediate family, but felt it wasn’t right for them to do so because their parents wanted to be there to see their grandkids open their gifts.

These are just a few examples of some of the issues couples have processed with me.  

Whether you are in a relationship or single the question you have to ask yourself is what you want your holiday season to look like.

Once you have your holiday mapped out how YOU want it to look, start implementing your boundaries to enforce your wants.

2.      Manage expectations

The holidays bring up a ton of expectations on people. These could be your own expectations or others. The thing we forget about is WE ARE HUMAN! You cannot physically be in a million places at once. Plus, you cannot make everyone happy.

So before and during the holidays you need to be realistic with yourself and the people around you. I think of that ridiculous Christmas movie National Lampoons Christmas movie.

The father was hell bent on having his Christmas look a particular way. He ran into obstacle after obstacle and instead of pausing to reevaluate he just kept pushing.

This is so relatable. I know that once I get an idea in my head for the holidays, I am laser focused on it has to happen that way. I have had to learn to stop and ask myself is this realistic and worth it.

3.      Prayer

I know you might be reading your screens going, “Wow, thanks Amanda we haven’t heard this before.” If you are, I get it! Any time you have a problem as a Christian and you tell another Christian their automatic answer is, pray. Which can annoy me too.

But hear me out, my reasoning for encouraging prayer is because our natural inclination is to pray, typically, when we have a serious problem. We don’t normally go to God for His instructions how he wants us to construct normal daily life. We look at that as a me thing and not a God thing.

But God wants to be there to help us with all things! God is going to be the one to help you navigate these issues in the best way, but He cannot help if we don’t ask.

After you read this blog, I encourage you to look back at your past holidays and evaluate what you enjoyed and what you didn’t. What are some traditions you have always wanted to implement but haven’t.

Finally, take some time with God to ask for His divine intervention on leading you to have a holiday season that is not only about the hustle and bustle, but about glorifying Him as well.

If you are in a place where you need assistance or want to dive further into this topic, I would love to be the one to help! To contact me click this link to fill out my contact card or click this phone number to contact me directly.