Relieve pressure to make holidays perfect

While the holidays are generally happy times, many feel pressure to make the holidays “perfect.” The emphasis on fashioning a flawless holiday causes these usually happy times to be laced with stress and anxiety. 

Much of our pressure is self-imposed.  We stress over buying the perfect gift, ensuring that everyone gets exactly what they want (and that they are surprised), preparing the perfect dinner, and decorating our homes inside and out. Often the busyness of the season leaves little time to reflect on its meaning. 

The commercialization of the holidays can be a source of frustration for families and individuals alike. So what’s the answer?  You can enjoy the holiday season with your checkbook and sanity intact by keeping in mind a few guidelines.

• Set your own standards.  You can take control of the holidays by deciding what does and does not fit your lifestyle. The holidays portrayed in the media most often do not reflect the reality of holiday celebration in most American homes. Seek to make the holidays real for your family and yourself.
• Make a plan. Sit your family down and ask what they think the holidays should be like.  You may find out that the outdoor light display is more trouble than its worth, and your husband and kids would rather help bake cookies than untangle strings of lights. This way the entire family has buy-in, and you don’t bear the burden of making decisions for everyone.
• Set a budget and stick to it.  It’s great to want to buy the perfect gift for your kids, spouse, in-laws and friends, but it can be too much to take on and too much to spend. The value of a gift can’t be judged by its price tag. The best gifts come from a sincere desire to make a person happy. If you give from the heart, your gift will never be too small.
• Talk to your extended family and determine a small amount to spend on each niece, nephew or cousin.  Or, you can draw names and purchase only one gift for that child. Odds are if you can’t afford either the time or money, neither can your relatives.  By making the suggestion, you take the pressure off everyone.
• If you can’t be with the one you love because of divorce, military commitments, or finances find creative ways to make the holiday special. For example, send a special videotaped greeting to a far away relative, or arrange to spend another day together as “Christmas.”

Enjoy the holidays for what they are, not what they should be.  Remember that you have a real family, not a TV family. There may still be arguments and rivalries among siblings – even grown ones. You may not be in control of other people’s actions, but you can control your reaction to them.

The fun of traditions is creating them for you and your family, not taking on someone else’s ideal and working to make it fit.  There’s no rule that says you must spend the holidays by the fireplace roasting chestnuts, drinking eggnog and singing carols. Paint your own picture of the ideal holiday, imperfections and all.

Related Articles

• Kari Henley: The Splendor And The Struggle Of Holiday Gatherings (huffingtonpost.com)

Holiday ornaments hold special memories

There are few yearly rituals more enjoyable to me than putting up my Christmas tree. Untangling strands of lights and unwrapping ornaments of years past is great fun and brings back wonderful memories of people, places, and special times.

Positioning packed-away ornaments on your tree can be a great family ritual, especially if some of those ornaments were fashioned by family members when they were children. Often holiday decorations contain valuable family history. The sight of them can bring nostalgia, wonderful memories, and welcome opportunities to recount those memories with younger generations.

Sometimes handmade tree trimmings are those we value most. For many of these ornaments, beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. As a teenager decorating my family’s tree, I considered my childhood handmade ornaments tremendously unattractive. Horrid, actually. The painted Popsicle stick sleds and felt Santa faces were not my favorites to trim the Christmas tree. Oh, how I longed for something more sophisticated than yarn, paper, and glued-on glitter.

As an adult I feel differently. I remember making those ornaments in elementary school and at Girl Scout meetings. My favorites are the simplest—construction paper ornaments adorned with glued-on glitter, an opening in the middle for a picture from that school year. There’s no denying that these ornaments would look a bit out-of-place on the designer-dressed trees we see in department stores. However, if you’re building a Christmas tree from your memories, one ornament at a time, nothing is more beautiful.

The real value in our Christmas decorations and tree ornaments lies not in their external beauty but in the memories and meaning behind them, whether handmade or not. You may have ornaments that honor a child’s birth, an anniversary, or a special trip. Teachers have ornaments given by special students, and others by a special friend or to commemorate a milestone. For some, the most meaningful ornaments may be the precious few scraped up to dress their first grown-up Christmas tree.

Instead of searching out gifts that may be forgotten by next year, consider crafting handmade ornaments for some on your gift list. It’s sure to save money, and is likely more meaningful to the receiver than any gift you could buy. If you’re making ornaments with children, your time spent is an extra gift to them. For gift-giving, place several ornaments in a small, decorative holiday tin, and be sure to label each with the year.

Christmas ornaments can remind us of where we have been, but also of how far we have come. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make great holiday memories. Sometimes, the best memories are homemade.

Holiday entertaining on a budget

A tight budget this holiday season doesn’t mean you can’t entertain friends, family and colleagues without breaking the bank.

The first order of business, of course, is to decide what sort of gathering you will have. Do you want to host a formal holiday meal, or do you just want to have people over for simple hors d’oeuvres?

Then set a budget and try to work within it. Start with a plan. Sit down and make a list of everything you’re going to need.

Food is usually the biggest expense associated with entertaining, so finding ways to save there can cut down significantly on your total cost.

One strategy is to thumb through sales circulars from local grocery stores and put together a menu based on the week’s best deals. Keep in mind that some stores have lower prices than others, and that some have sales on certain days of the week.

After assembling a grocery list, look for coupons in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet. Organize them by category to make it easier to figure out where you can combine savings with other offers to cut down on your bill.

By being creative and innovative, you can save big on table-settings and decorations. It’s kind of fun and eclectic and a little quirky to use mismatched plates and glasses. You can just coordinate your table with a color scheme and theme. Running short on flatware, plates or glasses? Try to borrow before you buy.

Place cards can be made out of all kinds of materials.  One of the easiest is card stock cut to the right size.

Create centerpieces and other decorations from items found in the backyard. Pinecones, branches and berries in a basket or a vase look nice and cost next to nothing.

Background music can come from CDs or sound files you already have or from a radio station you like; many stations even play holiday music suitable for a Christmas gathering.

Also, keep in mind that when money is tight, certain themes will produce far less strain on your budget than others. Hosting a potluck—providing the main dish and asking guests to bring a side dish, drinks or a dessert—is a money-saving way to entertain. Or you could do a cookie swap, for which guests bring a plate of cookies to share, a dozen bagged cookies to “swap,” and copies of the recipe.

Another frugal party idea is a popcorn and movie night. Make lemonade, pop popcorn—stove top is less expensive than the prepared microwave bags—have a variety of toppings, like cheese, cinnamon and sugar, butter, and rent a movie.  Lemonade from a packaged mix, iced tea, and coffee are all relatively inexpensive drink options for serving a crowd. Browsing magazines at the local library might inspire even more party ideas.

The bottom line? Even when you don’t have a lot to spend, you can still have fun entertaining family and friends.

Slow Cooker Suppers

Wondering what’s for dinner? Without a plan its easy to divert to the drive-thru for dinner when headed home from work. Your slow cooker is a great tool to answer the “what’s for dinner” question. This recipes was used recently at a foods program for diabetics. It’s healthy AND delicious. And I promise, it is easy to prepare.

Tortellini Tuscan Stew 1 (2-lb) butternut squash, peeled and seeded and cut into 1 inch chunks 1 large zucchini, cut into 1-inch chunks 1 large yellow squash, cut into 1-inch chunks 1 large onion, diced 1 large red bell pepper, diced 4 ounces thin green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths 1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes 1 can (14.5 ounces) chicken or vegetable broth 2 tsp dried oregano 1-1/2 tsp chopped garlic 3/4 tsp salt 1 package (9 ounces) fresh cheese tortellini 1 bag (5-ounce) baby spinach 3 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese Directions: Combine all ingredients, except tortellini, spinach and Parmesan cheese, in a 5-quart or larger slow cooker. Cover and cook on high 3 hours or on low 6 hours.Uncover. Turn slow cooker to high and stir in tortellini. Cover and continue to cook 15 minutes, or until pasta is almost tender.Uncover. Gently stir in spinach and Parmesan. Cover and cook 5 minutes until spinach is cooked down and tortellini is tender.