Preserve Your Cheer This Season with the Best Tips to Avoid Holiday Burnout
It’s a little bit sad that the time of year that’s referred to as the season of joy is often the one that drowns us in exhaustion or deals us a head cold.
This can happen when we don’t know how to avoid holiday burnout. No one said avoiding it will be easy. It takes a little bit of strategizing and a whole lot of fortitude. But, it is possible to protect our peace during this sacred season.
Here are nine strategies with a common thread running throughout them to help you avoid holiday burnout. You’ll recognize the thread immediately and understand why it’s so important.
1. Prioritize What’s Important
This falls somewhere in the category of “be yourself” and “choose what’s important to you.”
For example, if you love making hand-crafted ornaments, but don’t enjoy designing holiday cards, then prioritize the time spent making those ornaments. Maybe you won't even send out Christmas cards this year.
If you want to have the girls over for a holiday party, but you don’t enjoy cooking, turn it into a Hallmark movie marathon where everyone brings their own dish.
We know that, all throughout the year, we cannot be everything to everyone. And this notion is compounded during the holiday season when we’re being pulled in a hundred different directions.
Choose this short window of time – in what’s supposed to be a time of magic – to prioritize what’s going to fill your heart with joy. This is one of the keys to avoiding holiday burnout.
2. Set Realistic Expectations
Once you’ve chosen your priorities, remember to keep them realistic.
As you prepare for your Hallmark movie marathon, there’s no need to feel like you have to somehow balance the scales for the fact that you’re not cooking. You’d be surprised how many people enjoy potlucks because it’s a chance to show off their skills.
Set realistic expectations for whatever you’ve selected to be center stage. You don’t have to drop five hundred dollars at Home Goods on holiday decor. You can add little touches throughout the house with DIY decorations.
You don’t have to hire a three-piece band to serenade your guests with music. You can create your own Spotify playlist.
This is a kinder way of saying, “Take it down a notch,” but the point remains the same: don’t kill yourself with unrealistic (and unnecessary) expectations as you prioritize what matters most.
3. Acknowledge Your Feelings
Are you starting to feel overwhelmed yet? Is your mind racing as you try to figure out which Hallmark movies to play and what you’re going to bring to your own potluck?
That’s okay. Don’t gaslight yourself and pretend you’re not feeling a certain type of way. Acknowledge your feelings because that’s what will help you rebalance the scales.
If menu planning, movie selecting, or DIY designing is starting to bring you down, hit the pause button. Step away from the hot glue gun. Throw in a load of laundry while you consider whether or not you need to readjust your priorities.
There’s nothing written in some invisible Christmas contract saying you can’t change your mind and reprioritize as you go. But, the only way you can do this is if you stop to examine how you’re feeling and see what it means.
4. Know Your Limits
Everyone has a strange Uncle Marty, right? It’s just someone in the family or friends circle that gets under your skin and drives you nuts, making it even more difficult to avoid holiday burnout.
Is Uncle Marty going to be at one family gathering and not another? Perhaps you’ll pick and choose which soiré to attend.
Is Uncle Marty always hovering around the bar? Sounds like you know which part of the house to avoid.
Or, maybe Uncle Marty is completely unavoidable this holiday season because there’s only one soireé and the house is small.
That’s okay, too. In which case, give yourself a cutoff point. Make a decision that, this year, you’re only going to stay for drinks, appetizers, and the main meal. You don’t have to stay behind for the annual game of charades.
You can politely slip out, letting the host know you have some work you have to catch up on. Or, maybe you have to get home to walk your dog or feed your cat. Maybe you have an early day tomorrow.
Here’s an even better point: you don’t even have to tell the host why you’re planning on leaving after the main meal! Just know your limits, set them, and then stand by them. You’ll be so glad you did when you go home to that feeling of peace.
5. Practice Saying No
Which leads us to the next point… The art of saying no. Who knows why it’s called an art because it’s more like a battle strategy.
Truthfully, we should be practicing this two-letter word all throughout the year. But, we’re cognizant of not hurting other people’s feelings or letting them down while not keeping our own holiday burnout in mind.
Remember, this is your season of joy, too. Why should you let anyone else steal your light? If you can’t make every party, politely decline (with or without a dissertation on why you can’t make it).
6. Don’t Try to Do It All Alone
This falls into the category of knowing your limits and acknowledging your feelings. Why are you trying to wrap every gift by yourself when it’s 1:30 in the morning and you have to be up at 6?
Ask your partner or children for help. Make Friday night pizza night a time when everyone bands together to wrap presents and get dizzy on hot chocolate.
Invite friends over for a wrap party. Set up a hot chocolate bar or a mulled wine tasting menu. By turning it into an event, you can all pitch in together to help one another cross the finish line and avoid holiday burnout.
7. Don’t Neglect Your Rituals
If, every morning, you wake up at 6:30 to meditate and read your daily devotionals, now is not the time to stop. The holiday season tends to get a little hectic with obligations and expectations, so now is not the time to stop centering yourself.
Be very determined to stick to your rituals to help avoid holiday burnout. It’s okay if you can’t get to them every day because of that late night wrap party. But, keep them front and center.
If you like to wind down at night with a glass of wine in the tub, don’t scratch that off the list because you want to bake one more pie for the office. Take that bath and go to the local bakery for pie in the morning. Whatever you do, don’t neglect your rituals.
8. Snag Your Deals Online
Why on earth would we drive to a big box store, fight for a parking spot, walk through a frigid parking lot, and battle the aisles – while crashing our carts into one another – when we take care of our holiday shopping from home?
Think about it. You could be home, with Home Alone playing in the background, while sipping a glass of mulled wine and dropping reduced-price items into your cart.
It’s true that some small businesses can’t run holiday deals the way big box stores can. So, you might have to venture into town to support the little mom and pops that you’ve grown to love.
But, by and large, the online Black Friday deals start long before Black Friday and often last right through the season.
Save yourself the trouble of holiday burnout and stay online with some cozy slippers on your feet.
9. Don’t Forget to Rest
This ties into your rituals, but it’s worth repeating.
Remember, this is supposed to be the season of joy, not of burnout. Find small moments to nestle under a blanket with a book and a fresh pot of tea.
Know when to cut yourself off from your to-do list and head to bed. Give yourself that extra hour to sleep in on Saturday morning, knowing you’re still going to get it all done. The world won’t stop turning because you gave yourself an extra hour of rest.
The tricky thing about burnout during the holidays is that we don’t see it as it’s happening. Rather, it sneaks up on us from behind until we’re completely suffocated under the weight of it.
Get ahead of it by sticking to your list of priorities, setting realistic expectations, forgiving yourself if you don’t get it all done, and finding time to honor your rituals.
Stop Wondering How to Avoid Holiday Burnout
It’s true. You can stop wondering how to avoid holiday burnout.
Make a battle plan; choose your priorities; carve out time for yourself; and start saying no. If that’s something you have to start practicing, now’s the perfect time.
Protect your peace in this sacred season of joy. You’ll be glad you did when you look back with fond memories of a peaceful time.