An Expert Offers Moms 3 Tips for Easing Holiday Anxiety This Year
In the thick of the holiday season, the pressure for moms to do it all reaches a fever pitch. These simple strategies aim to ease the stress of parenting during this time of year, and soothe holiday anxiety.
Why Am I So Anxious During the Holidays?
In our house, we’re officially in holiday emergency mode: My school-aged kids are mere days away from winter break. It’s scramble-mode at work as my clients and co-workers race to sign off for the last of the December holidays. What’s more, somehow our house is still just half-decorated, and I can’t say for certain if I’ve even completed my Christmas shopping.
On any given day, my version of the gray area—in which I balance stay-at-home motherhood with part-time work—feels tenuous as it is. And as we inch ever closer to the last of the winter holidays, this sense of dizzying overwhelm threatens to snowball.
“Holiday overwhelm happens for the same reason that everyday normal to-do list overwhelm happens,” says Anna Dearmon Kornick, a time management coach in Madisonville, Louisiana. “We put pressure on ourselves to meet unrealistic, impossible expectations. [And] we don’t have a clear plan for following through with the things that we want to do during the holiday season.” And as the holiday season quickly draws to a close, the pressure to do it all only grows.
Mentally juggling this “jumble of ideas,” as Kornick coins it, can only lead to one thing: a constant hum of low-level panic about leaving things undone. Because that’s no way to spend the last few weeks of the year, I asked Kornick to share more. Below, she offers practical tips for navigating this busy stretch—in a way that gives you time and energy to enjoy it all with your loved ones.
Meet the Expert
Anna Dearmon Kornick: Time management coach in Madisonville, Louisiana, and the host of the weekly podcast It’s About Time.
How to Ease the Overwhelm & Anxiety of the Holidays
1. Make a Long List
When we have too many things we want to do, but no plan for how to get it all done, we set ourselves up for overwhelm, says Kornick. “It is hard to think about anything else when your brain is constantly cycling through all of the different things that you need to do, but you haven’t come up with a concrete plan for doing them yet,” she explains.
Her first step to finding peace in these last few weeks of the year? Make a list. Whether it’s hosting a holiday party or taking your little ones to the Polar Express, “get those ideas out of your head and onto paper so that they stop bouncing around,” Kornick says. And sure, your holiday activity list might be long, but that’s OK, she adds. Editing it down comes later.
When you pick the traditions that matter most, you can be all in and present and really enjoy making memories.
2. Move Events & Activities to Your Calendar
“You can only participate in so many different activities. So this is where prioritization really comes into play,” Kornick says. Now it’s time to weigh your options: within the limits of these last few weeks, what do you want and need to do, whether that’s shopping your neighborhood, volunteering, or planning a New Year’s Day brunch?
Once you have your list in-hand, Kornick advises plotting your events into a calendar. This allows you to reserve time for the things that are most meaningful to you. “When you pick [the traditions] that matter most, you can be all in and present and really enjoy making memories,” Kornick notes.
3. Trim Your To-Do List
For parents who still have a gigantic to-do list ahead of them, Kornick has three words: eliminate, automate, and delegate. If sending New Year’s wishes is important to you, could you save time and energy by using a service like Postable to do the hand-addressing and mailing, for example? Kornick encourages mothers—the default holiday magic makers—to consider how they might ask for help during this crunch time, whether it’s dropping your kids off at grandpa’s, teaching your older child to help wrap gifts, or picking up some pre-made foods to round out a holiday feast.
For parents who still have a gigantic to-do list, Kornick has three words: eliminate, automate, and delegate.
When it comes to navigating this busy time of year, Kornick’s advice comes down to this: be realistic. “The way to make it realistic is to actually start plugging things into your calendar to see what you have time for,” she says. “It’s going to be so much more worth it to have less things on your plate that you can actually enjoy, versus having too many things that [leave you] frazzled.”
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