5 Tips to Make this Holiday Season Stress-Free

“The holiday season is a really fun and awesome time, where you can hang out with your family and receive lots of presents,” a child remarked.

As for the mothers, this is an entirely different kind of season involving lots and lots of stress. It’s not like they don’t want to enjoy the sweet holidays, it’s just that they can’t, with all the shopping they have to do and all the dishes they have to cook. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year all come back to back and mothers can’t find a time to really catch their breaths and relax.

But this year, I say we change it up a bit. So what, you are a mother? You should get to enjoy all that the holidays have to offer too (at least a little bit). So, here are a few things that you could do to really make your holiday memorable this year:

Start Early:

It’s always a good idea to start early in your holiday shopping and planning. Really, the more time you have to plan what you will do, how you’ll decorate the house and what presents will you give to your family, the more stress-free you will be.

Shop Online:

Avoid the hustle and bustle of the crowds of the markets in the holiday season. With everything available online in a much cheaper price, I think it’s a good idea if you shop for your holidays online too as you will be in the comfort of your house and everything will be delivered to your doorstep. If you do this, I would suggest that you take this step early too so that you can make sure that you will get everything you need on time.

As always Amazon is my go-to place. I can find almost anything and with Amazon Prime, I get 2 days shipping plus tons of other goodies!

Save Money by Avoiding Traditional Gifts:

Buying individualized gifts for each and every person in your family and on your list can be a lot tough on your bank balance. I say that you should change it up a bit. Divide people in your family groups based on their interest. For example, if you have young boys, you could get them a video gaming set. Two birds with a stone, right? Ice-cream maker or Blu-ray player, whatever interests you family would be fine. As long as the gift you plan to give costs less than what you would have spent while giving exclusive gifts to them individually.

Regift (With Extreme Caution):

You can regift something but you should do it with extreme caution. Make sure that the gift you are regifting has never been opened; has been properly rewrapped; and it matches the taste of the person you are giving it to. Also, the person who gifted it to you and the person you are regifting it to must not know each other at all. Otherwise, it can be a big mess. But if you do it right, it will save you a lot of money!

Don’t want to cook? No problem!

Here is when the money you saved on presents will come into use. If you truly want a stress-free holiday, you can hire someone to cater for your thanksgiving or Christmas party. This way, you will not have to spend your whole day in the kitchen and you’ll actually be fresh when the dinner time arrives. You can still make some special dish like Thanksgiving Turkey or some Christmas special dessert if you so desire. But otherwise, you’ll be free to spend the holiday in a way of your own choosing.

Honeybaked Ham and other places (like your local supermarket, etc…) offer delicious catered meals or just meats. Think about having the meal prepared for you to give you more time to spend with your family and just make one special dish or dessert stress-free.