Holidays have always stressed me out. It was not until recently (yesterday) that I realized that it is not the holidays causing the stress it is me trying to create the perfect holiday causing stress.
I try very hard to maintain traditions, create new memories, and to make holidays perfect for my family. The problem is that I can not make anything perfect because I am NOT perfect. I work so hard at trying to achieve perfection that I end up stressed and not being very nice to my family. I also end up disappointed in the outcomes achieved because nothing ever lives up to the high expectations of perfection that I set.
The past two years I have gone through the Thanksgiving and Christmas season in an emotional fog. I wanted the perfect Christmas for my family this year in order to make up for the past few years. However, as I moved through the first stages of preparing for the holiday nothing has gone right and I keep imagining disaster after disaster occurring. After some thought I have realized that my stress levels are at a high level, for relativity silly reasons.
Thankfully my husband helped to remind me that Christmas is not about decorations and tradition. Sure decorations and traditions are good, but they alone do not make for a happy holiday. I am really going to try to not let the little things stress me out for the remainder of this holiday season. I can’t promise that I will be successful, but I will try.
Tags: coping, holiday stress, stress