DALLAS (ABP) — 'Tis the season for anxiety attacks as to-do lists grow longer and days grow shorter. But families can reduce holiday stress by following a few simple organizing tips, author Marcia Ramsland says.
“The holidays are as much a matter of organization as they are a matter of the heart,” said Ramsland, who wrote Simplify Your Time: Get Organized and Stay that Way. “If you do anything in life more than once, organize it and simplify it. That's especially true at the holidays.”
A well-known speaker for Christian women's conferences, Ramsland has been a national speaker and consultant since 1985. Her tips have been in Woman's Day and Better Homes and Gardens magazines. She has also appeared in radio interviews with Janet Parshall's America and Moody's Midday Connection.
By organizing, Christians can direct their attention to the meaning behind the holiday and to creating memories with their families rather than wasting time and energy on less-important matters, she said.
Ramsland, who lives in San Diego, Calif., said roughly 75 percent of holiday stress comes from three areas — buying and giving gifts, sending Christmas cards and decorating.
One way to reduce anxiety involves keeping a holiday notebook — a loose-leaf binder with dividers — from one year to the next as a handy reference. Ramsland recommended creating sections designated for gifts, cards, decorating and recipes — as a well as section labeled “successes.”
“In that section, put in pages recording the best thing that happened this Christmas, and keep it from year to year,” she said. A recommended heading is “We honored God in our celebration by… .”
For many people, Christmastime stress centers on buying and giving presents, especially when it comes to overspending and trying to figure out who needs what.
In the gift-giving section of the notebook, Ramsland said to make a list of people need gifts, gift ideas, a budget. A downloadable form for the list is available on her website, www.OrganizingPro.com.
To save time and improve efficiency in shopping, Ramsland had several more suggestions:
–Follow a theme. Give everyone on the gift list a distinctive present, such as a sweater or a music CD that fits a particular person's tastes, or a book related to that person's interests.
–Shop appropriately. “Recognize if a person is practical or sentimental,” she said. As a clue, consider the kinds of gifts that person typically buys for others. For instance, if someone usually buys power tools or kitchen utensils for others, that person probably would like a practical gift.
–Stick with success. Buyers should keep track of where they find most of their best-received gifts from year to year and shop there first.
–Keep track of who got what. “Save your gift lists from year to year and refer back to them,” she suggested.
–Plan craft time. For people who like to give handmade presents, reduce stress by planning a realistic schedule of how many gifts can be made before Christmas — and how many are projects that need to be started earlier in the year. If making gifts by hand is a priority, schedule and treat crafting times as appointments to be honored.
–Shop for children last. Children go through phases quickly, and they often change their minds about what toys they want for Christmas, particularly as they see holiday advertisements.
–Shop for Jesus first. “I like for people to put Jesus at the top of their list,” she noted. “Whether it's a gift of time or a financial gift, pray about it and make it priority.”
Ramsland recommended that shoppers look at Halloween rather than the day after Thanksgiving as the starting date for the present-buying season. If most presents are bought and wrapped before Thanksgiving, that leaves more time for other activities during the weeks immediately before Christmas and eliminates stress-inducing trips to overcrowded malls.
After shopping for presents is out of the way, look for ways to simplify the crowded calendar by combining social events, Ramsland suggested.
“If you're going to a Christmas play at church, but you also want to get together with a particular couple, invite them to go out to dinner with you before the program,” she said. “Do a couple of things in one night. By multi-tasking, you free up another night.”
Once required activities are done, families have time to develop their own traditions. Ramsland suggested something as simple as asking everyone at the Christmas dinner table to mention something that happened in the last year for which they are thankful.
Her best advice? Families can reduce stress considerably by not holding themselves up to an impossible standard, she added.
“Check your attitude,” Ramsland said. “Make sure you're not expecting too much — that you're not aiming for perfection. It doesn't have to match what your mother did.”
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