Stress-Free Holidays by Ana Tampanna
Here are some tried and true approaches for a life-chang- ing, no stress holiday season:
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Volunteer: Sign up to serve Thanksgiving dinner at the local soup kitchen. You will have a profound experience, I prom- ise.
Become a bigger family: Announce at your church or school that you are organizing a potluck Thanksgiving for singles and for families who would like to be part of a bigger group, i.e. anyone who wants someone to eat with on Thanksgiving. En- courage people to bring their favorite holiday dish. You would be amazed at the people who come—divorced
parents whose children are visiting “the other parent,” single adults, single parent families, and people who can’t face the stress of preparing and cleaning up a huge dinner by them- selves.
Take a trip: Take a trip at Christmas. Take your family or a special friend and go somewhere you’ve never been. Explore.
o you wear yourself out trying to please everyone for holidays—purchasing gifts, decorating, entertaining, cleaning, cooking, then cooking some more?
Christmas decorations are everywhere— religious ser- vices abound. Resorts often have lots of empty condos at Christmas. (It’s the week after Christmas that is in big demand.)
Select an area restaurant for a deluxe Christmas Eve dinner remembering that nothing is open on Christmas Day.
Enjoy games, books, and puzzles together.
For children, emphasize the search: Give less expensive gifts and hide them. Leave rhyming clues to maximize the fun.
Entertain foreign guests: Call the local colleges and universities and request foreign students as guests for the holiday. They are such fun and bring fascinating stories about their lives at home and at the school. Sometimes they even contribute a treat from their homeland!
Remember those who work on holidays: Take some cut up veggies and a dip to an office where people work throughout the holiday, such as a fire station, a police station, or a nurses station at the hospital. Usually sweets abound, but nutritious nibbles make for a thoughtful gift. Wrap little novelties for a nursing home of Alzheimers patients. Sit and visit a while with patients who can still connect. Women love used costume jewelry.
Propose a special family project such as helping the Battered Women’s Shelter. You can collect toiletry donations from big hotels or hold a clothing drive.
Honor a favorite relative by giving a goat to a family in Uganda in his or her name. Go to
http://catalog.heifer.org.
These are a few ideas to get you going. The hardest part is choos- ing to do something different. Focus on enjoying your family rather than pleasing them. Simplify your preparation, and give love at a time that carries loneliness and heartbreak for so many. Instead of stress, you will find yourself full of gratitude.
Author, coach, and speaker Ana Tampanna has wrestled “Alliga- tors” maintaining a career while managing family challenges... including a tragedy. She uses humor as a survival tool, and has a passionate mission for supporting magnificent women who want to make a difference with their lives. You can find out more about Ana at
www.alligatorqueen.com
10 Triad
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