Love it or Loath it…How do you make sure you enjoy the Festive Season?

We are steadily heading for the festive season and thoughts of Christmas, parties and family celebrations tend to come to the fore. It can be a bit of a world wind time where we get caught up in all the present buying, party organising and hearty eating and drinking. It can be a time of catching up with old friends and family, a coming together in the festive spirit.

There is a flip side however to the season to be jolly… people can find that the holiday season is also a time of stress and pressure, including frantic present buying, awkward family reunions and excessive eating and drinking. How do we go about having an enjoyable festive season? Here are some helpful pointers…

Good time management is essential. Write a schedule of all the commitments you have leading up to and including Christmas, ensuring you have allowed sufficient time for all the present buying, socialising and general organising. By scheduling back wards from Christmas day up to the present day and thereby allowing enough time for everything, will seriously alleviate your stress.

Don’t stop your regular routines. If you do work out, swim, do yoga, whatever it is, stick to the same schedule over the festive period, this will keep you feeling good and mange stress levels.

Enjoy your partying, however, a suggestion… don’t start suddenly eating foods you’re not used to or drinking alcohol which you wouldn’t normally drink. This will alleviate your most common causes for food and alcohol ill effects and remember to pace yourself.

When spending time with the family, decide to make it a positive experience. If there have been family tensions in the past, try making a point to adopt a positive state of mind beforehand. You will be much more likely to let the time flow and allow any potential irritations to wash over you. Choose what your experience is going to be.

Take the time to appreciate the time together with loved ones. We do tend to get so caught up in the pressures over the Christmas period that we forget to enjoy the simple pleasure of just being with friends and family. Enjoy the moment.

If Christmas season has been a challenge for you in the past, decide that this Christmas you are going to have a different experience, make a choice to be in charge of your attitude and mental state. Avoid stress and focus on the positives. You may be wonderfully surprised.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful Festive time… Full of love, peace and joy… As Jean-Luc Picard would say make it so…