Holiday Overload: Avoiding the Rush of the Holiday Season

The month of December is, as it does every year, flying quickly past. It seems like we just put away the Thanksgiving leftovers, and now Christmas is less than two weeks away. We all want the holiday season to feel festive and light, to enjoy time with family and friends, and to make sure our children feel loved even more than usual. But the reality of this time of year is that there is SO MUCH going on. There are themed dress-up days for kids at school, end-of-year concerts, class and office parties, gifts to buy for neighbors, and teachers, and friends, and family. There are worthy causes that support the less-fortunate, meals to plan, and memories to be made. If you’re feeling rushed off your feet to the point that the holidays don’t seem so festive, you are not alone. This rushed busyness is a huge part of why people often struggle with their mental health at the start of a new year. There’s been so much going on, we often forget to focus on what is important. Whether you want to refocus right now for this holiday season, or you’re looking ahead to future holidays, there are things you can do to minimize stress and maximize the impact of the activities you choose this time of year.

Ahead of time:

Be clear in your family’s priorities for the holiday season. Talk with your partner about what is most important to your family in regards to the holidays. Do you want to make sure to get family Christmas cards out, so relatives and friends who live far away can get an update on your lives? Is it important to you to give back to your community? Do you want your family’s focus to be on faith aspects of the holidays? Is it important to spend a certain amount of time together as a nuclear family? By answering these types of questions, you can start to figure out which events and functions are most important to you as you plan around the holidays.

Make a clear plan for non-negotiable events. As invitations and dates start to roll in, you’ll likely realize that you won’t be able to be everywhere at once. Communicate clearly with your family which events will be attended by whom and what dates are most important. For example, if one child has a gymnastics Christmas party on the same night as the other kid’s band concert, plan which parent will attend which event ahead of time. It may not be perfect, but you can have an idea of what to do, rather than panicking at the last second.

Make a list of non-family members that you plan to buy gifts for and include a price point. This will allow you to be generous to those that are most important in your life while also not stressing over forgetting someone or the cost. If you plan this ahead of the holidays, hopefully you’ll have fewer little last minute surprises! *Pro-tip: We all have occasions pop up where we need to buy a gift we weren’t expecting. We’re invited to a party and need a hostess gift or a neighbor buys us something, and we don’t want to be rude. Keep a small stash that you can purchase throughout the year of “good for anyone gifts” like your favorite hand lotion or other personal care items that can be added to a small gift card for an easy present!

Think about what family traditions are most important to your family and schedule those into the holidays. Growing up, we always spent the Friday after Thanksgiving at home, eating lasagna, decorating the Christmas tree, and watching a holiday movie. Maybe you love to take your kids to Northpark to see Santa or you love attending the Rockwall tree lighting or your church’s candlelight service. Put those events on the calendar ahead of time, so they’re prioritized for everyone!

Feeling rushed now?

You can still prioritize the current holiday season and refocus today.

Be present in the quiet moments. Whenever you are with loved ones, make the conscious effort to put your phone down, and be with the people around you. It’s amazing what simply disconnecting from technology can do for your mood and attitude during a stressful season.

Remember that “No, thank you,” is a complete sentence. You don’t HAVE to say yes to every invitation. It’s perfectly fine to decline to attend a gathering if it’s only going to make you more stressed, stretched more thin, spend too much money, or take time away from what you want to prioritize. You don’t owe anyone a long explanation of why or an elaborate excuse. You can still be polite and say “Thank you so much for including us. We just won’t be able to make it.”

Take time to reflect on why the holidays are important to you. Whether you are a person of faith celebrating a religious holiday or this time of year is important to you as a time to focus on giving to others and spending time with family, refocusing on your “why” can be impactful in dealing with the extra events and planning around the holidays. Take a few minutes to make a list of what you enjoy about the holidays and why this time of year is special. It can truly help in feeling more at peace and less hurried.

At Rockwall Counseling and Wellness, we truly understand that this time of year can be especially stressful, and we want to help you feel joy and be at peace during the holidays. If you’re struggling with any mental health issues, related to the holidays or not, please connect with us. We would be honored to help you!

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Written by Emily Taylor, Contributing Writer

Practicing Gratitude to Improve Mindset

During this time of year, we often find ourselves distracted. The holiday season can be a stressful time for many. Whether is it because we’re needing to hold boundaries we’ve set with family members that we will now see at holiday gatherings, or simply because of the seemingly endless lists of things to do, places to go, and events to organize, even the cheeriest time of year can feel like we’re struggling to find peace. 

Impacts of Gratitude

One way that we can refocus during this time of busyness and hurry is to work on improving our mindset in general. That may seem like a lofty aspiration or like something that is too complicated to work towards, but there is actually a very simple way to improve your mindset starting now that will carry throughout the holiday season. And, if you continue this practice, it will only continue to improve your mindset and positively impact your mental health. Practicing gratitude is one proven way to improve your mindset and make sure that your mental health is a priority. 

Expressing and focusing on gratitude and thankfulness has so many benefits to our mindset and ultimately our mental health. A grateful attitude and mindset is by nature positive, and when we’re more focused on the positive things in our lives, it is harder to be negative. Researchers have shown that while gratitude cannot cure depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues, simple gratitude practices positively impact patients’ outcomes in dealing with these struggles. 

Gratitude places us in the present. Rather than focusing on what we don’t have or the things we’re worried about for the future, when we are grateful, we are fully focused on the present. This means we are less likely to be burdened by the past or anxious about the future. 

Gratitude can also have a significant impact on our relationships. Researchers at Harvard Medical School noted that couples who took the time to thank their partners had more positive thoughts toward the other person and felt more comfortable expressing concerns about the relationship. When we know we are valued by our partner because they express consistent gratitude and thanks, we feel more secure. We know that even if there are disagreements or issues, they appreciate us as a person, and they want what is best for our life together. 

Practicing Gratitude

The Oxford English Dictionary defines gratitude as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and return kindness,” but what does that look like in our every-day lives? There are so many creative ways that you can focus on gratitude, but these are just a few to get you started:

• Keep a gratitude journal. - Start or end every day by writing down three things for which you are thankful. They can be incredibly simple:  your health, your family, your job, warm coffee, the ability to exercise, getting to see a friend, really anything that you noticed in your day that brought you joy or a sense of thankfulness. Focus on those three things for ten minutes, thinking about why they are important to you and how you can bring more of this type of thing into your life. You’ll be quickly surprised by how many things you have to be thankful for in life. 

• Write a thank you note. - Think about the people in your life who have had a positive impact. Sit down and write them a note, telling them why they are important to you and how they have positively affected you. This focus on others can almost instantly shift your mindset away from problems or troubles in your life to something good and uplifting. As an added bonus, they get the benefit of knowing you appreciate them. 

• Be intentional in thanking those around you. - Especially during the holidays, everyone’s stress levels are high. It can be easy to slip into transactional interactions with others - cashiers, retail workers, restaurant servers, etc. - without ever really thanking them. Try to make a point of taking an extra few seconds to make eye contact with the person you’re receiving a service from and thanking them for their time and effort. This may seem like an obvious thing to do, but we’ve all been in such a hurry that we didn’t even notice the human in front of us. Slowing down to be intentional in our thankfulness toward others has a positive impact in our own lives as well as in theirs. 

• Give back to your community. - While giving may not seem like an act of gratitude, it really is. In order to give to others, we have to first recognize that we are in a situation where we have enough to give. We have enough time to volunteer. We have enough clothing that we can make a donation. We have enough money to help buy coats or gifts for children in our local schools. We have enough change to put a little in the Salvation Army collection bucket. Even if the gift to others seems small, its impact can be large, for others and yourself. If you know you have enough and are grateful for what you have, then you can give to others out of a full and joyful heart. 

We at Rockwall Counseling and Wellness are grateful for you, our community. We appreciate your continued support and are thankful to be a part of your lives. We know that working with individuals, couples, and families to foster improved mental health and strong relationships is an immense responsibility, one we do not take lightly. Thank you for trusting us with your well-being! 

When the Holidays Aren't So Merry

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Oftentimes we find ourselves feeling down this time of year. The time changed, it’s getting dark earlier, and you’re feeling a little more isolated than you were just a few months earlier during the summer.

You are not alone. When you think of all of the people who are grieving and/or going through their first holiday season after divorce, widowhood, or the loss of a loved one, you realize that the memories can make the holidays more painful than happy at this time of year. Add to that the additional stress the season brings in the form of activities, shopping, and school events—well, you can see the problem. It’s like adding that last too-much drop of water to an already overflowing bucket.

What to do? If you are experiencing loss this time of year, your goal is this: to make it through. This is not the time to fill your chore list with handmade gifts (or gifts at all—who’s going to blame you this year?) or high stress dinners. If ever there was a time in your life to put you (and your children, if any) first, this is it. Exercise your “say-no” muscle with a firm and assertive smile and pass on committees, obligations, and entertaining. The people who might judge you—and believe me, there are fewer than you imagine—are simply not worth a second thought.

When the memories and tears come, allow them. What we resist, grows stronger, so don’t fight the feelings that arise. Tears actually expel cortisol, a stress hormone that is damaging to the body and needs to come out in order for you to be healthy.

Ask your friends and family for what you need this year, specifically. Do you need help making decisions on the children’s Christmas list? You probably have at least one friend who would love to help you. Do you need people to just listen to your grief without advising you? Tell them that you really just need an ear, not a response, from them.

These are just a few ideas; you know best what helps you stay strong. Just remember that you WILL make it through. Rest, heal, and wait for better days.