Creating A Stress Free Holiday Season

So, I want you to ask yourself, like, what really matters to you? How do you want to carve out your time for the things that matter? When you know what matters, you can keep it front and center and lean into it. This is how my season wants to go, or this is how I want the season to go.

Make a list of the things that matter, and then you can look back and say, when you get bombarded with something else, you can look at it and say, this does not work for me, you know? Welcome to the Thrive Her podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sanders. I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, stepmom, second wife, and master certified life coach.

I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create the thriving life you love. Hello, welcome back to the Thrive Her podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sanders, and today we are talking about how to create a stress-free Christmas season, because isn't that what we all want? We want, we have this, like, picture-perfect vision of what we want Christmas to look like, and yet sometimes it is very far from what we have envisioned.

And I know that when it comes to the holiday season, there are a lot of things that we want to do, so many feelings that come up, there's so much overwhelm, there's so much that is going on that really takes us away from what this season is all about. And I'm hoping that what I want to say in this podcast actually comes out and you make sense of everything that I am saying, and you're able to take some nuggets of wisdom and apply them into your life and your holiday season so it's a little bit simpler, it's a little more connected, and you enjoy it. So I hope that's helpful for you today. And this podcast is actually, I've been thinking about it, but then I also had, I had a client a couple weeks ago who we really worked through some of these things with stuff that was coming up in her life because of the holiday season.

And I thought, man, so many people struggle with the same things, and they're things that we actually don't really need to struggle with. So I'm going to dive in. I hope I make sense. I have a few notes jotted down, but a lot of it's just inside my head.

So I hope it comes out. But as I start... I want you to just open up your mind and be open to what's possible here and what your Christmas season can look like. I want you to envision what that does look like for you.

Who are you with? What does your house look like? What does your relationships look like? What parties are you going to?

All of the things. If it were to be perfect, what does that look like? Now, I said perfect, but I actually don't like that word. Because...

Because things are never going to be perfect, right? And so I'm hoping today I'm going to give you some tools to handle certain situations and different mindset options that you can take so that, yeah, so that your holiday can be a lot better. So I'm going to start with just a few questions. And when I asked you to open up your mind, this is why.

Because when I ask you these questions, I just want you to get curious what comes up for you. What's really important to you? And how you want this to go. So the very first question I have for you would be, what does it look like for you to be more still, more present, and to do less?

In your life, what does that look like? In the holiday season, we get so wrapped up with all of these stresses that really aren't necessary. They aren't really the things that bring you the joy. They're the things that bring you the peace and the hopes of what you want your season to be like.

And when I say season, I am talking about Christmas. I'm talking about Christmas Eve. I'm talking about all of the parties. I'm talking about New Year's Eve, New Year's.

I'm talking about all of it, okay? Some of the common stresses that we have are money, like that we have to spend so much money around Christmas time. Also, like our houses, what they look like, who's coming to see them, judgment, us against social media. That was one thing that was really coming up with my client recently was just all of the social media pressures.

Right now, you are being bombarded with ads. Bombarded. Because this is the highest season of spending. The fourth quarter of the year is where most of the money is made by businesses.

And they double down on their ad spends. They double down on sales. They double down on everything so that you will buy. And if you know this...

Then you can separate yourself and say, actually, I don't really want that. Even though it seems like everyone on the planet is buying that, I don't have to. I don't actually have to buy the matching jammies and post my family on Instagram. That doesn't have to be a thing.

If you want it to be and you find joy in having matching jammies with your family and watching Christmas movies in your matching jammies or waking up to Christmas Day in the matching jammies, great. But if you don't have a budget for that, then you don't have a budget for that. Or if that doesn't serve you, let it go. It doesn't matter.

Social media is doing its job. The ads are doing their job. And if you can separate it and look at that and say, yeah, they're doing their job, but I still get to decide what works for me and my family, you're going to find a lot more peace and joy within that. Buying Christmas gifts.

Why do we buy Christmas gifts? We buy them for the people that we love and we buy them essentially as a reminder of Jesus Christ and the wise men coming and bringing him gifts. That's why we buy them. People do not have to have the best of the best, the most expensive.

That doesn't have to be a thing in your life. You can decide what works for you. You can create a budget that works for you and stick with it. And if you stick with it, you are going to feel empowered because you showed up and did what you said you were going to do.

You kept a commitment to yourself. Well, also being able to gift those people that you love, those presents, all of these things that we think we need to get in order to have a good Christmas are just things that we are thinking we need to get. It does not mean it's actually true. If you look around like the whole world, if you look into different countries and you see how they're doing Christmas, it's very different.

And a lot of it is, it's all okay. All of us have different families. We have different things that are going to work for us. That are going to work for us.

That are not going to work for us. And we get to decide. If you want a very minimalistic Christmas, you can do that. It's totally okay.

And if anyone, I know right now, as I say this, people are probably like, what about the judging? What if someone's judging me? Then that's on them. Because this is your Christmas.

This is your family. This is what you get to do that feels good to you. If making Christmas cards and sending Christmas cards to your family, you're going to feel good. If making Christmas cards makes you want to throw up, don't do it.

But if making Christmas cards brings you happiness as you're writing down all of the people that you're sending them to, and you love receiving Christmas cards and it's a fun thing to do, then do it. If it doesn't fit into the budget, don't do it. My whole point is that you get to decide. Attending Christmas parties and New Year's Eve parties and all of the different things, all of the different things, all of the different things, all of the different things, all of the different things, all of the different events.

I'm going to give you some tips to set you up for success going to those events. But also, those are things that you get to decide. You do not have to go. You can say no.

You are the CEO of your own life. You have a choice. And so you can show up however you want to. You can say, yeah, that doesn't work for me.

Or you can say, yes, I will go because I'm supporting my partner. And go into their Christmas, their executive or company Christmas party. Okay, great. Then you've decided to go.

And so you can show up in your power and go. But again, if there's any type of resistance or shoulds or anything, I want you to get around that kind of energy. I want you to get really curious as to why. And then I want you to make the decision that's going to suit you best.

Because ultimately, we decide. We decide that it's stressful. We decide that it's overwhelming. It's our own thoughts about it.

I know people that like love to do all of the things during the season. And they find joy in it because it does something for them. For me, I love to wrap presents really pretty. And it takes a long time.

And so I start wrapping presents. What works for me is I start wrapping presents as they come in the mail. Also, I wrap presents. I buy almost everything online.

So I'm not in the stores. And I'm not frustrated, stuck in traffic. Because that's what works for me. But as they come to my door, I wrap them pretty quickly.

I wrap them. I put them under the tree. I used to wait until Christmas Eve. And then I was so stressed out.

The couple days leading up to Christmas was just a nightmare for me. So I decided I could do things different. And when I did, and I started just wrapping them as the presents came, it was fun for me. It was better.

It didn't feel as stressful. And I learned that my family actually loves it. Because they love seeing the presents under the tree grow. And so it became a win.

And recently, I asked my family, because I was like, I love them to have a beautiful present in their lap that's wrapped real well. I just, I think that's fun. I grew up that way. And so I brought that into my family dynamic.

And I asked my kids, this year, actually, I'm like, by the way, do you guys like that I do that? That I wrap presents pretty? And they all said they love it. Which then gave me more motivation to keep doing it.

I'm like, oh, they love it. This means something to them. And it meant something to me just because I've liked it. So I was like, I'm going to do this for them.

And they've liked it. My whole point is that I've chosen to take more time to wrap the presents. So I can choose to say, this is really stressful. And it takes a lot of time.

Or, I can choose to look at it like, this is a fun thing that I give to my kids and my family. They love to receive a nicely wrapped gift. It works for me. So I add it into my Christmas season.

And I do it in a way that also works for me. Over the period of time, when I have pockets of time, I wrap some presents, I stick them under the tree. And maybe this is my anal side of me. I don't know.

But I love the presents and the tree to also go. So that it all looks nice together. And so they are color coordinated. I realized this year that my family also loves that.

That the tree looks pretty. The presents look pretty. So that works. My whole point is we get to decide how we spend our time.

We get to decide what is important and what is not important. We also get to decide when to say no. We get to decide how we spend our money and on what. If you do not have the money to get that special gift for whatever your kid's asking for, it is okay.

It's not going to be the end of the world. It'll be okay. It's not about the gifts. It's about the season.

What really matters is the connections with the people that you love. What really matters is celebrating Christ's birth. And ultimately, he came from... He came from really humble beginnings.

What matters is spending that time with the people that you love. Like spending time with family. If it's watching Christmas movies, great. If it's going to the movies, great.

If it's going to see lights, great. If it's eating yummy food, whatever it is, take time to enjoy it. So that you feel fulfilled during the Christmas season. That you feel the joy that is meant for you to feel during the...

Christmas season. Giving a loved one a present can be very joyful. Are you taking time to fill that instead of filling the stress and the burden of getting that gift or spending that money, whatever it is? So that is my next question for you is what really matters to you?

I've mentioned a couple things that I do with wrapping the presents, wrapping them earlier so that I have more time. I also love... We do a weird... We do a weird Christmas.

We do a weird Christmas party with our... Just our individual family, our seven kids and us. We have a Lego party because half of the kids love building Legos. My husband loves building Legos.

And so we all buy Lego sets. Legos are not really my forte, but spending time with my family is. And so sure, I'll sit down and put some Legos together. But a lot of the family loves to build Legos.

And so we have a Lego Christmas party. It's our own little tradition that I don't know of any other family that does that. But we do that because that's what works for us. So I want you to ask yourself, like, what really matters to you?

How do you want to carve out your time for the things that matter? When you know what matters, you can keep it front and center and lean into it. This is how my season wants to go. Or this is how I want the season to go.

Make a list of the things that matter. And then you can look back. And say, when you get bombarded with something else, you can look at it and say, this does not work for me. You know, this doesn't make the list.

Keep it front and center and do the things that work for you. Also, during this season, it can be a lot because you do have more things on the calendar. You do have the Christmas recitals the kids are doing. You do have the stuff at school.

You have the work parties. You have the Christmas parties with your neighbors, with your friends, your family. There's a lot of things that could be required of you. And so I want to ask you, how will you make time to slow down to be able to take care of yourself?

How are you going to take care of yourself over the next couple weeks? Maybe it's a bubble bath. Maybe it's a walk all by yourself. Maybe you have a book that you can just sneak away and read.

Whatever it is, it's going to look different for you because you are a different person. But how? How are you going to take care of yourself? You are the only one that knows that answer.

But I'm asking you to do it. Take a little bit of time for yourself, even 15 minutes a day, to just regroup, ground, so that you have enough to give other people as it will be more. There's a lot that's required, especially if you are a mom. I've required of you around Christmas.

What do you want to do that's fun? Go see the Christmas tree. Go see the lights. Have some parties.

I'm all for the parties. I love parties. So my husband and I host a pretty good-sized party for all of our neighbors every single Christmas. It's super fun.

We plan the craziest games. But that's fun for me. I love it. So it doesn't feel like work.

It feels like excitement and fun and what am I going to do this year? How am I going to make it different? Instead of it being stressful, it's something I lean into because I truly love it. If that's not your forte, then it's not your forte.

What is? Another question I have for you is how can you and where can you ask for help if you're feeling overwhelmed? Do you have people that you can talk to? Mom, sibling, friend, partner, kids?

Who is it that you can lean on when you're feeling overwhelmed? And when you're feeling overwhelmed, what can you do to get out of being overwhelmed? Remember that being overwhelmed is just a feeling and it's created by thoughts. And a lot of times those thoughts are things we don't actually have to do or they're lies that are keeping us stuck in that feeling of overwhelm.

So if you can reframe your thought like this actually is not hard or I can do this, I can eliminate this, whatever it is, it's going to bring down that overwhelming feeling. You can easily do it just from, tweaking your thoughts a little bit. And then also asking for help where you need to ask for help. During this holiday season, there might be a time or two where you are faced to see family members that maybe you don't love to see.

Maybe you're not really vibing with them. You get offended by them. There's weird energy, whatever it is. As we are seeing a lot more people during the season, it is likely that you might run into people that you don't like.

You might run into or have to spend time with people that you don't really want to spend time with. How are you going to cope? I'm going to give you a few suggestions. And then I want you to think about what you can do that will work for you.

So first of all, people are people. And if you have certain people in mind that you don't really love to spend time with, that's okay. But also if they're family, it might be that you have no children. It might be that you have no choice.

You're going to show up at an event. They're going to be there. So you have options here. The very first option I'm going to give you is that, or idea, is that you can let go of the resentment or the expectation of how you think they're supposed to be.

Because that ultimately is what's bringing you a lot of resentment. Is knowing, like being frustrated about something they say, or something that they do, et cetera, that really you can choose to let not bother you. This can be said like it's easier said than done for sure. But you can choose that.

You can say he is, he, she, whatever. He is going to show up this way. And I wouldn't expect anything less. And I'm going to choose not to let it bother me this year.

Because this is just how he is. You get to decide, how you show up to an event. But everyone else gets to decide how they show up for the event. You get frustrated when they don't show up the way you want them to show up.

But if you can look at this and say they are who they are, and that is okay, you are going to feel so much better. And you're going to not feel so heavy or frustrated because you're allowing them to be who they are. While you still show up in your power, which is also what I'm going to ask for you. Is, to show up in your power.

So that when you leave the event, you don't have any frustration, shame or guilt about how you showed up. Show up in your power. And let go of how you expect them to show up. Another thing you can do, is choose to talk to other people.

You might say hi, be friendly. But you don't have to spend time with these people. At least long periods of time. You really don't have to.

You can choose to look for the good in them. This one really, really helps when you look at all of the things that you like about them, instead of focused on the things you don't. You're going to have a much more enjoyable time. Because you're going to see the good in them.

And because you're seeing the good in them, you're going to be vibing more at a higher energetic level, which is going to feel better to you. Essentially, you're tapping into more of being Christ-like, Christ's love, opening up your heart, which always, always feels better. So you can choose to do that. We get to decide what we let go of.

We get to decide what bugs us. We get to decide what doesn't bug us. And we get to decide if and when we let go of expectations we have. The faster you can let go of expectations, the better.

Now, as I say this, I am not saying this, just let go of how they be. I'm not saying now they can treat you however they want to treat you, and you're just going to take it. I'm not saying that. I'm not asking you to be a doormat.

I'm asking you to stand in your power and understand that you can show up and be proud of how you show up while also allowing other people to show up how they show up and not letting it affect you and your power. That's what I'm saying. You might not agree with how they show up, but you are choosing not to let it bother you. When you choose to let it bother you, you're taking it in.

Almost like I like to think of it as you're allowing it to show up. You're allowing that to be some sort of truth of whatever they say or whatever they do. If you choose to let it bother you, then you've chosen to believe it. And that does not help you.

That does not serve you. And so look at different ways. If you have some really tricky events where you're going to see people you don't necessarily love to be around, decide ahead of time how you want to show up for yourself, for your family, for them, and it will feel so much better. A couple more questions.

What are a few words that you could describe to yourself of how you could show up as your best self? What does your best self do? How does she show up? What does she say?

What is she wearing? Who does she love? Who does she hang around? Who does she spend her time with at these events?

Think about what few words would be words that you could hold on to as you come into these scenarios that you can hold on to and use so that you do stay in your power, that you do show up as your best self, that you are proud of who you are and how you handle difficult situations. Let's be honest. During the season, there can be difficult situations. And it's okay.

Ultimately, I want you to see that you have a choice. You have a choice as to how you show up for the season, how you spend your time in the season, and how you feel throughout the season. If you want to feel joy throughout the entire season, you can. If you want to feel totally connected to the ones you love throughout the season, you can find ways to do so, even if they're not going to be able to make it.

We have all kinds of forms of communication now to where you can truly connect with everybody that you love. And we also have so much freedom as to how we spend our time and with who. So in wrapping up here, I want you to just focus on what really matters to you this season. Is it being present?

Is it connecting with family? Doing fun things? Creating memories? Think about some of your most favorite Christmases.

What was it that made them your favorite? It was probably time doing something special. Whatever it was, see how you can bring some of that into this season, into all of the different events, all the different things you're going to be going to, while also showing up as your best self. And that is what I have for you.

I hope you have the most amazing, amazing holiday season. And you're able to take some nuggets out of this and apply it into your next few weeks so that you can have just an enjoyable time. Best wishes to you and your family and your loved ones. And I'll be here next week with another episode.

And I'll see you later. Bye. Hey, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you've got to come check out my signature program, Thrive Her Academy. This is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation.

I teach you how to apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can create that life and business that you love. For more information, go to www. amysanders. co forward slash services.

Again, that is amysanders. co forward slash services. And I'll see you next week. Bye.