Gift 5: Spending time with people you love is a wonderful gift, and special holidays can be lonely without them. If you’re spending the holidays away from home and family this year, you don’t have to do it alone. If following old traditions is not possible, start some new traditions of your own. Friends, neighbors or coworkers who are also away from family could become your “extended family” for the day. One of my blog readers wrote to tell me that she will not be with her family this Thanksgiving so she is going to cook dinner for several homeless people she has met through her church. What a gift she will be giving them!

Gift 6: Re-evaluate long-standing customs and traditions to see if they’ve become obsolete, burdensome, or just plain boring. Suggest making a few changes that are long overdue. And don’t be surprised when other family members thank you for taking the lead and having the courage to do something they have wanted to do for a long time! And speaking of family, have you ever wished you could spend the holidays with someone else’s family for a change? A friend of mine suggests that instead of exchanging gifts on Christmas, we should exchange families. That may sound like a great idea … at first. But we would soon discover that “the perfect family” is not much different than our own “real” family.

Gift 7: Know your limitations, which may change from year to year depending on what else is going on in your life. Do what you enjoy most and reduce the number of tasks that feel more like chores. Stop feeling guilty about what you didn’t finish on your “to-do” list and congratulate yourself for all the things you did accomplish. What tasks can you eliminate, share or delegate to free up time to spend on you and the things you really enjoy? Taking care of yourself in mind, body and spirit will make your holidays – and your life – less stressful and much more enjoyable!

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