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Stress Free Holidays - 5 Ways to Eliminate Stress {Episode 45}
87 Plays5 years ago
If you think it's not possible to go through the holidays without stress, we've got your back! In this episode, we identify and discuss tips for 5 main holiday stressors. After listening to this episode and applying our tips, you too will enjoy the holidays!
Mentioned in this episode:
Boundary video by John Townsend
Podcast with Aundi Kolber on grounding technique
Bonnie's Blog post: Tips for traveling with kids
Bonnie's Blog post: Games to play with a toddler on a plane
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Stress-Free Holidays
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to episode 45. Today we're talking about stress-free holidays and we've identified five main stressors that cause headache and sweat and pain and stress over the holidays and we also have tips for each of these areas to help you so that you can have a stress-free holiday too.
Meet the Hosts: Bonnie and Audrey
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Listener Feedback and Encouragement
00:00:53
Speaker
And we're back, and we're gonna talk to you today about stress-free holidays, how to make that happen. It seems like the two words can't happen in the same sentence, but we're gonna give you our best tips today. So we're gonna start off with a review. And this one is from Tiny Human Nurse. It says, my favorite podcast. I look forward to this podcast every week. Go back and listen from the very beginning. Every single episode is fantastic.
00:01:19
Speaker
I really cannot put in towards how grateful I am for this podcast and the piece it brings me to hear from mothers further in their motherhood journey than myself who are willing to share their encouragement. Keep up the amazing work, ladies. Thank you for that review. That is awesome to hear that.
00:01:34
Speaker
from you. That is so nice. Yes. And I love that she shared an encouragement to go back and listen because I agree some of our, well, you know, I love every episode we do, but some of our early ones were so good. And I hope that not everyone just listens, just starts listening wherever they find us, you know, whatever else that we're on. I hope you guys take the time to go back and maybe every episode isn't going to apply to you. And that's totally cool. But some of the ones we have really will apply to every
Pre-Planning for the Holidays
00:02:00
Speaker
mom. And I think they're so good and I'm glad people are going back and listening.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's like we're building an audible encyclopedia on motherhood here. Yeah, we definitely don't have all the answers, but we do talk about a lot of stuff. So yeah.
00:02:14
Speaker
Okay, so I am going to give you guys a quick little humor segment. So Finn is my six-year-old and he is hilarious. He is just a ball of fun. Sometimes he drives me totally crazy, but when he says cute things, it's just adorable. The other day, so just to set the record straight, we do not eat a lot of fast food, but for some reason my son has gotten attached to McDonald's breakfast sandwiches.
00:02:34
Speaker
I think we ate them a couple of times on our road trips this summer. And so the other day, he's been begging me to take him on a date to get a McDonald's breakfast sandwich. So we did recently. Oh, the ones with the little mayonnaise drops or the, um, no, little syrup drops in there, maple syrup drops. No, they're just a regular like English muffin sausage and egg in them. Okay. So super basic. He says the other day to me, mom, why are McDonald's breakfast sandwiches so good? They're like heaven.
00:03:00
Speaker
And I said, really, like heaven? Yes, they're heaven, but for food in your mouth. That was so cute. I'm like, yeah, they'll probably kill you eventually, but I guess it's OK on an occasion. That makes him it easy to take him somewhere for a reward. You know what he likes. Yes. Yeah. And it costs like two dollars. Yeah.
00:03:24
Speaker
Okay, so let's talk about the holidays. Holidays are intended to be enjoyable, beautiful, lovely, family, happy. No one hopes for stress when they're thinking of and planning a holiday. It's just not in anybody's ideal. You don't see magazine pictures all decorated up nice for the holidays and people mad and not enjoying themselves stressed out.
00:03:47
Speaker
It's not what people want. So today we're going to talk about the holidays and how we're doing this before the holidays hit because pre-planning is so important. So we're going to talk you through some stuff today that will hopefully help deal with and eliminate some of the stressors that can happen.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yes, and while you say that no one hopes for the stress, I really do think that people plan for it because it's such a common issue around the holidays, which is really sad because this is the time of year when we're all using excuses to get together with our families, to think about what's most important, et cetera. It should be a very loving, wonderful time, but so many of us just equate it with stress, which is kind of sad. Maybe I should say that people don't hope for stress, but they do brace themselves for the stress.
00:04:32
Speaker
I think that's kind of sad, right? So today we're going to share some suggestions on how to maybe restructure your holiday so that it causes less stress. But we want to just say at the outset, we are not going to condemn any way, anyone's way of celebrating. Like we're going to share some suggestions of things that we do a little bit differently, but obviously whatever works best for your family.
Managing Family Interactions
00:04:53
Speaker
is the right choice. I just would encourage you to take a hard look and if it's not working for your family, what you're usually doing, to be brave and be able to shake things up even if it's scary to change time on our traditions.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So when we were thinking about this episode, we identified five areas that can cause stress during a holiday. Those are people, time, food, travel and money. So we're going to address each of those, the things that can cause stress in those five areas and our tips for dealing with those five stress areas.
00:05:28
Speaker
Right, so to start off, we're gonna talk a little bit about people stress. So the holidays always involve a lot of people, right? There are parties, especially family members, lots of family get-togethers. And with family get-togethers comes extra time together and often with people that you haven't seen for a long time, sometimes years, right?
00:05:45
Speaker
And so those reunions can be happy, but they can also be stressful because you're not used to interacting with these people on a regular basis. And people change over the years. Sometimes it's difficult to live up to the expectations of others at holiday time. Everyone has probably experienced this the first holiday season with your in-laws, right? When you first get married and have holidays with in-laws, all of a sudden you realize, whoa, people do things
00:06:07
Speaker
differently than I did growing up. And sometimes there's some stressors and some strain there. And people are very emotional regarding the traditions that they want for their family. And so when anything gets changed or doesn't work out, that can be a stressful time as well.
00:06:21
Speaker
Right, exactly. You have to, if you have extended family, you have to decide which side of the family you're going to spend which holidays with. I know that we have some, an aunt and uncle who do Thanksgiving though is do Thanksgiving Day with his side of the family and they do
00:06:38
Speaker
the next day or the evening with her side of the family. It's like you just got to come to terms with two extended families and your whole families aren't going to meld or you can also choose to do like the family starts with us and then you start your own traditions and celebrations from there.
00:06:58
Speaker
So yeah, people stress. Like for me, I'm kind of a people pleaser and I want my kids to make a good impression. I want my kids to behave. I want people not to gossip about how horrible it was to have a cell phone.
00:07:13
Speaker
afterwards and how badly my kids behaved and all that. So that always gives me stress before a holiday. And then I'm like, you know, difficult family relationships with extended family. You know, even if you get along great with every single person in your extended family, there are most likely people in your extended family that don't get along with each other. And so just kind of to be around that tension and that those relationships. Yeah, definitely people stress. It's a big, big part of holiday stress.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, and it can be a large part of the joy that comes from your holidays as well, if you can overcome these stressors, right?
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. So the first thing I thought about
Time Management Tips
00:07:53
Speaker
when thinking about tips for avoiding this kind of stress is to decide ahead of time what you want the goal or the purpose of your holiday season to be. So let's say take Christmas, for example. Let's say you love a great Christmas celebration, but you choose that this year your focus is going to be on strengthening your nuclear family or on worshiping Christ or whatever your focus chooses to be. And then
00:08:18
Speaker
get rid of anything that does not fall in line with that purpose. So maybe a cookie decorating party with your extended family is not going to be on the agenda because that's not going to help strengthen your nuclear family, which is the purpose, right? And then right along with that, I would encourage everyone to make sure that they have very firm boundaries in place. So relationship boundaries are a hard, hard thing, but they are so necessary.
00:08:41
Speaker
And as families change, you know that your boundaries have to change as well. You grow up and get married and move away. You have to have different boundaries with your parents and your siblings and then your kids grow up and move away and they create new boundaries. And boundaries are not meant to block people out. They're meant to keep people safe, right? Like if I choose to do something with my nuclear family and, you know, my mother-in-law has a
00:09:05
Speaker
you know, problem with that, then it's not really my problem, right? Because I've had these boundaries and the boundaries are that it's not the purpose isn't to make her happy, it's to strengthen my nuclear family. So I hope hopefully that makes sense. But that's really important around the holidays. Yeah, Bonnie, we should add. Let's put a link in the show notes to that one TED talk that you shared with me about boundaries. Oh, yes. So good. Yeah. Who is that by? I can't remember.
00:09:37
Speaker
Uh, okay. Uh, yeah. One thing that helps me deal with people stress, um, like if we're extended family and there's tension or whatever going on is just keep in mind, it's temporary. Like you don't live with these people. You don't have to be around them very often. This is a temporary situation and in 24 hours or 48 hours, it's, you know, not going to be in this situation anymore. And it kind of helps deal with the, um, people's stress. Yeah. And then another thing, um,
00:09:59
Speaker
Okay, we'll put it in the show notes.
00:10:04
Speaker
I just listened to a podcast recently and will link this one in the show notes because I don't have it at hand. But it was talking about, um, in it, it was mentioning a grounding technique that you can do. Um, and it just takes like two minutes. So, you know, you're with family and it's getting the stresses building up. And so go outside in nature and if possible slip off your shoes and stand barefoot to the earth and look
00:10:33
Speaker
at five things. Name just in your mind or out loud, name five things that you can see, four things that you can hear, three things that you can could reach out and touch or actually, you know, pick up a leaf and touch it. Two things that you can smell and one thing that you could taste. And that kind of does this mental reset grounding. And then you can go back in and start again from a place of
00:11:01
Speaker
connect, reset groundedness.
Balancing Food Traditions
00:11:03
Speaker
So I love that when I hear that. Wow. I love that too. And I would say that that is probably an excellent tip also for preventing a mom freak out in general. Holidays are known, right? When chaos gets overwhelming, I'm going to try that. Go outside and there's a ground myself. Don't talk to me right now. Mom is coming to earth connecting right now.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, if we have a kid that is flipping out or having a hard day, we can do that with them too. They don't have to know that, you know, they're being grounded by doing this little activity, but you can say, Hey, you know, they're having a temper tantrum or whatever. So you grab them, take them outside, strip off their shoes, put them on the ground and then say, Oh, look, I see. And then, you know, show them something that you see and ask them to name something they see and just this connection with nature. Like we could help out our kids that way too. Yes, totally.
00:11:49
Speaker
And then one thing I like to do, another thing I like to do is talk with my kids beforehand about what they can expect, you know, what it's going to be like to be around different people. If they're old enough, you can kind of explain some of the family tensions if you know about them or situations so that, you know, an older kid likes a teenager, they're going to feel awkward if they stumble into a question or situation or conversation that's not
00:12:13
Speaker
you know, comfortable for them because of family tensions they don't know about. But then also I talk with my kids beforehand about my expectations for their behavior while we're in this situation. Yes, I love that totally.
00:12:26
Speaker
So we're going to move on to the stress of time. It feels like everyone's always short on time nowadays, especially during the holidays. And I think especially because you want this time to be a time full of enjoyment, happiness, good memories. You want your kids to go off to college remembering all these wonderful holidays that you had together. And so you feel the need, you feel pressured to say yes to all the wonderful opportunities.
00:12:51
Speaker
You know, cookie decorating party. Yes. Visiting with Santa. Yes. Traveling to see family. OK. Yeah. You know, and quickly spirals out of control. And instead of happy memories, they just remember mom stressed and screaming all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Some time stressors for us are everybody's off their routine.
00:13:09
Speaker
You know, if dad's off work, that's enough to throw everybody off their routine and get kids grouchy. So then that's one stress. Another stress with time is meals at certain times. So let's say, OK, our, you know, Thanksgiving dinner this year is going to be at three o'clock in the afternoon. Well, that's great. But my little kids, I'm going to have to plan ahead to get them a snack so that they're not having a meltdown from anger when we get there, you know, or maybe you plan to do, you know, a brunch that day.
00:13:37
Speaker
Well, if my kid gets up at six o'clock in the morning, I want to figure out a plan how to get them just enough food so that they're still hungry and not refusing everything when we get there, but not so hungry that they're having a meltdown. So all these, you know, sometimes special meals are at a different time than your kid is used to.
00:13:56
Speaker
And then there are potential time zone differences. If you're traveling, I know that with our recent time change, my baby is having a really hard time adjusting just to the one hour difference. He loves to go to bed early. And now I've been trying to introduce, you know, 10 or 15 minutes later every night and he's so crabby about it. So if you travel across several time zones and, you know, and your kids are off their time, their normal time zone, that's going to be a time stress too, that you're going to have to deal with, plan for and all that.
Travel Stress Solutions
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, and just think for a second how hard it is for us to travel and be around people that we're not familiar with. Think about that. But those big problems in a tiny little kid body. And it's hard enough for me to wait a couple extra hours for a meal. But a child, I often forget about that, that no, they're not just going to roll with the punches and be OK with the 7 o'clock dinner. And to plan ahead, it can be so helpful to remember that going in and just to have lots and lots of patience and grace with your children.
00:14:54
Speaker
We're not going to push, push, push. You know, so that on top of those added expectations of them performing well in front of all the ascended family is like a total recipe for disaster to just have extra grace with them and with yourself, obviously.
00:15:07
Speaker
Some of my tips for dealing with time stress is once again to decide what fits your main priority or priorities of the holidays and only say yes to those things. We can quickly over-schedule ourselves and fill up our time constraints until we are just so stressed out and then there are no good memories being.
00:15:25
Speaker
being made. Sometimes we have to say no to extended family if what we want to do with our own nuclear family is more important. Maybe we don't want our Christmas to be chock full of toys overflowing everywhere. Then I highly recommend throwing away the toy magazines before they ever make it inside your house and not encouraging endless Christmas lists, et cetera. So just to be aware of what you want to emphasize and do that, say yes only to the things that encourage that. Yes.
00:15:54
Speaker
Good plan, good ideas. If they don't see it, they're not going to ask for it, right? Okay. So some of my tips for dealing with the time stressors are as much as possible, keep young kids on a regular bedtime, even if it means, you know, you're three hours away in a time zone and they go to bed at four o'clock in the afternoon and get up at, you know, especially early for that time zone. Well, just it's going to make
00:16:20
Speaker
it worth your while to have them well rested. And then maybe if somebody says, okay, we're gonna have Thanksgiving dinner at four o'clock in the afternoon, does that work for you? Well, don't be afraid to speak up and say, well, actually with my kids, can we have it a little closer to maybe two o'clock? Because that would, you know, so, and then also if you are the one fixing the dinner or the meal,
00:16:46
Speaker
be reasonable with what you can do. Maybe you cannot have a full Thanksgiving or Christmas meal fixed by 11 o'clock. So don't set your time for 11 o'clock as the time for the meal, unless you want to get up at two o'clock in the morning and start. Just be reasonable on expectations for yourself as well. Keep yourself in mind. Totally, totally.
00:17:08
Speaker
So moving on, we're gonna talk a little bit about food stress. And this is a huge one for adults and kids alike. So much stress to eat all the junk all the time and just make yourself miserable, right? First of all, there's the peer pressure of people around everywhere and everyone's eating garbage. So we might as well as on top of it, you know, the memories of those special foods. Like, well, I always remembered eating turkey on Thanksgiving. I can't possibly still be a vegetarian on Thanksgiving, you know, or whatever your own,
00:17:37
Speaker
food goals are and these memories and these and this peer pressure all encourages overeating and eating of lots of unhealthy foods even ones that you know are going to make you sick because you're in the season you know why not yeah yeah there are certain foods that are only like you can only it's very difficult to find canned pumpkin any time of the year other time of the year than during the holidays and same for oh you know the
00:18:06
Speaker
the little candied fruit to make fruitcake. Those, that kind of ingredient is very hard to find any other time of year. So there are certain foods that are only available or most people only make for the holidays fruitcake or pumpkin pie or whatever. And so, you know, like, oh man, I haven't had, you know, pumpkin cinnamon rolls since last year. I'm going to totally gorge myself on that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Pumpkin cinnamon rolls? Yeah. I mean that recipe immediately.
00:18:33
Speaker
Okay, we'll link that one in the show notes. Oh, that sounds delicious. Yeah, see? Nobody cares what we're talking about. Fear pressure. Special foods.
00:18:46
Speaker
No, but seriously, I'm just so fun. Some food stresses for us are special diets. Right now we have a sugar free diet going on in our household. And that is not very nice around the house. You make it and I'll enjoy it through you. OK. And then I'm cooking different foods like, oh, man, say, you know, I've always wanted to make a lemon meringue pie. Well, maybe you shouldn't try out the recipe for the first time to take it to a big family dinner.
00:19:17
Speaker
and discover that you accidentally, you know, doubled the salt and forgot to half the sugar or whatever. So there are some food stresses with wanting to take something nice. Sometimes, you know, if it's a potluck type situation or you say, I'll bring the desserts or something that can add stress to, to you because you want it to be nice and everybody enjoy it and compliment it. And so yeah, that adds stress too. Yeah, totally.
00:19:42
Speaker
So a few tips for dealing with this food stress is I try to pick a few foods that mean a lot to me and maybe are traditions that I want to keep going with my family and enjoy them guilt free but to say no to all the rest. So if I'm going to say yes to the pumpkin cinnamon rolls and to
00:19:59
Speaker
the special mashed potatoes or whatever, then I can't also eat the chocolate-covered nuts, you know, because I'm just going to be sick and regret it all and feel unhealthy. So, you know, to be very mindful in what you're choosing, like, oh, I would just feel like it wasn't Thanksgiving if I didn't eat X. OK, well, then eat that thing and enjoy it. But you don't have to eat all the things.
00:20:22
Speaker
All right, some of my tips for dealing with food stress is try to eat as similar to home as possible or similar to the diet your kids are used to as possible. So if that means that you
00:20:34
Speaker
plan one special meal during the holidays and everything else is just like normal, then do that. If you're traveling, something we like to do is instead of stopping at a restaurant for a meal, we'll stop at a grocery store and buy what we would normally fix for lunch. So sandwich ingredients and make sandwiches from whatever, at the grocery store or wraps or whatever to keep.
00:20:59
Speaker
to keep it more like home eating than restaurant eating when when you're traveling. Again, it does take more time to eat like that when you're on the road. So you got to plan ahead for that. And then, you know, if you're staying in a hotel, if you're traveling and staying in a hotel instead of eating out for your meal or instead of eating the restaurant's breakfast buffet, you can also cook in your room or have if you have that capability in your room or you can have a supper in your room cook
00:21:29
Speaker
whatever you can do to make it as much like home as possible for food. And that will help your kids keep on, hopefully, more of their normal.
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I will say that my kid's behavior is directly related to what kinds and how much of food they're eating, right? And so if we can keep it as close to normal as possible, then it tends to keep my kid's behavior normal as well.
Handling Financial Pressures
00:21:55
Speaker
And along those lines, this is why I almost always look for Airbnb's instead of a hotel. You can often find one for a very similar price and then you've got a kitchen. So you can actually create some real food in there.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, especially with large families, a hotel is almost impossible because you have to get two rooms and then you can always get a $200 a night Airbnb and it's way better and bigger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My kids definitely.
00:22:20
Speaker
their behaviors related to what they eat too. Like, and then you have to, you know, sometimes you find out some triggers. Like we found out on one holiday and we were at someone's house and my kid ate something that had red food coloring in it and then went totally bonkers. And so now we know that kid can't have red food coloring. And yeah, which is fine. You just deal with it.
00:22:42
Speaker
All right, moving on to the stress of travel. Some travel stresses are being confined to a car seat. Kids can't get out a lot of energy when they're doing that. Maybe because they're confined, they're having a lot of screen time. They're out of their routine. There's the extra cost of travel and they're eating different foods. So those things all add to the stress of traveling during the holidays.
00:23:05
Speaker
Right. And anytime your routine is messed up, your kids act out. What stresses me out is that there's an excess of traffic and people everywhere. So if you're on a plane, it's jam packed and people are stressed out trying to get places. If you're on the road, there's traffic jams and accidents. And then just the stress of getting yourself there and your entire family without it taking a week to get there and without spending a fortune. So yeah, a lot of travel stress.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about the time that you and I met in person, actually, Bonnie, and how you were kind of like, oh, my kids are being misbehaving or wild animals. I was like, dude, you're traveling. That's what kids do when they're traveling. Yeah, it was a rough day. Yeah, it was just traveling with kids. So we have a whole episode, episode 22, about traveling with kids.
00:23:52
Speaker
definitely go listen to that one as part of your stress free holiday planning. Yeah. Oh, I'm also going to link it in the show notes to this episode that I have a couple of posts about traveling with kids and one specifically about stress free holidays on my blog. So that could help too.
00:24:07
Speaker
So another tip I have for dealing with travel stress is stay home. I know it sounds simple, but there have been several holidays where we have been we just waited in the balance all the stresses and all the things that possibly come with the stress of travel and just found it just found the balance to be totally tilted on the side of staying home. And so we've started making some of our own family traditions and holiday traditions around staying home and being at home.
00:24:37
Speaker
However, I do want to say that if you're traveling, like something unavoidable, plan something enjoyable for yourself every day. I know as moms, yes, we have it all on ourselves at home, you know, taking care of the kids, but when we're out traveling and we have these extra stresses on us, it can, like I have returned from so many trips needing a vacation from my vacation. Amen.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, so if you can just plan something enjoyable or something relaxing or something, you know, away for yourself every every day or at least once or twice during during the trip, that's that's huge. Like for me, one thing I like to do is if there's a fabric store somewhere where I'm traveling, you know, sewing is huge for me. So I'll go visit a fabric store just, you know, just for an hour or one time
00:25:33
Speaker
We were visiting some of my family in Montana and my brother and sister-in-law watched the kids and my husband and I went to an athletic club that had a sauna and we just had a nice time away for ourselves for about an hour and just something for yourself so that you can be in the best condition for
00:25:51
Speaker
dealing with the travel stresses. I love that tip and I'm starting to think back on trips and things that I've done naturally for myself as well. It's funny, I've been to Disneyland quite a few times and I do enjoy Disneyland but I also enjoy the LA fashion district and it's not terribly far.
00:26:07
Speaker
So I have set that in on family trips. For me too, I like to, running is one of my favorite hobbies. And so when we travel, I love to run because it's a great way to see the neighborhood too. So I'll purposely take time out of my day to just go for a quick little jog around the neighborhood or even a slow walk to just enjoy the scenery and the different weather if possible. Usually, you know, if you're in the Midwest in the wintertime, maybe not, but you know, maybe you're going to Florida for Christmas. Sounds great. Go for a walk, you know, go play on the beach or whatever, something that can really fill your bucket.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yes, definitely. That's an awesome tip.
00:26:40
Speaker
As far as travel stress suggestions for me, I would say once again, remind yourself of those holiday priorities. If you're traveling, part of your priority is probably gonna be to reconnect with the family that you're visiting or maybe just relax with your own family because you're going on vacation somewhere. Keep that at the forefront of your mind and don't let anything else stress you out. Like you mentioned, keep your routines as much as possible and under plan your activities in order to better focus on family relationships. So oftentimes I'm like, oh my gosh, we are gonna have so much fun.
00:27:10
Speaker
we're going to do this and then we're going to do this and then we're going to, you know, and halfway through the second day you're like, I just want to shoot myself and go home right now because this is so overwhelming, you know, and adding all your kids misbehavior and the messed up routines on top of all these things that are overstimulating. It's just a recipe for disaster. So if at home we could be able to do the zoo one day and then the water park the next day,
00:27:33
Speaker
I'm still not going to do that on a vacation. I'm going to do maybe one of those things and allow ourselves a day of recuperation because it's just not worth the stress and the tears and the meltdowns. Yes, yes. All right. And now we left the best one to last, right? Haha. Money stress of a holiday. So there's lots of extra things that are included in holidays that aren't part of the everyday
00:28:01
Speaker
budget. So those extras take a toll money wise, gifts, travel expenses, maybe
00:28:10
Speaker
maybe time off work that possibly you're not getting paid or your husband's not getting paid. Or if you're working from home, you know, that's, that's in your, your way, you're not working or, you know, those of us like you and I, Bonnie, we're not, if we're spending time with family, extra time with family, we're spending less time on our businesses. So all that can add to the stress, the money stress of holidays. Totally. Yeah. I don't know anybody that's not extra stressed about money at the holidays.
00:28:35
Speaker
And to be honest, most of it is self-inflicted. It's not like other people are coming to us and like, give me all your money at the end of the year. It's that we have decided to spend it on gifts or on traveling. And not that that's bad, we just need to really evaluate where it's worth it to spend that money, especially if it's going to bring us stress, right?
00:28:54
Speaker
Right. And it's like everybody's clamoring for your money with, you know, Black Friday sales and then pre-Christmas sales and then Christmas sales and then after Christmas sales in New Year's. And it's like everybody's clamoring to get some of your money at this time when people traditionally are spending more money. Agreed. And just because everyone is spending more money doesn't mean you have to, right? And it's helpful to, like you said, pre-plan. Make this plan way ahead of time before you start seeing all the coupons coming in your mailbox.
00:29:20
Speaker
I would say that for me, one of the biggest stresses is the keeping up with the Joneses. So I see that so-and-so is buying their kid this thing and so-and-so is going on this trip. And so, you know, why want my kids to have those memories? And a lot of times it's not for me, it's because I want my kids to... I want to give my kids wonderful things, right? Like we talked about in the episode about money and kids, it's really easy to fall into that trap of, well, my kids all need all these things to be happy.
00:29:44
Speaker
And that's not true at all, right? But nobody wants their kid to be disappointed Christmas morning. You want to create all these wonderful memories. Well, memories are created anytime you do something out of the ordinary and that has a lot of positivity to it, right? You don't have to put your kids on a plane to Germany.
00:30:01
Speaker
to give them a memory. In fact, that might just be more stress and money than is worth. You can give them the memory of being more present with them or putting away your own work to have a little more fun with your kids or whatever it is that would be special for your family.
Gifting Experiences over Items
00:30:18
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. I have some tips on dealing with money stress, but I did want to say, before I get into them, that we're doing a whole episode on alternative holiday traditions and experiences, right, Bonnie? Isn't that one coming up, too? Yeah, some of these things are real money savers, so we'll begin to that one. Stay tuned for that one.
00:30:43
Speaker
Okay, so some of my biggest tip for dealing with the money stress is giving gifts of experience. I think for me personally, I remember from my childhood, my fondest memories of our doing things and not things that I got. So gifts of experience. Again, I know we talk about it all the time.
00:31:06
Speaker
But Miranda Anderson in the Live Free Creative Podcast talks all the time about the experience over stuff, less stuff, more adventure. And so that's a great place to listen to her podcast to start getting ideas on
00:31:25
Speaker
giving a gift of experience. So some examples of things that we do instead of giving things, like we make things together. So for us, it's usually food, food things that we make together. So we'll make up an enormous batch of sausage and we'll clear off the whole dining room table and we'll, everybody will get their hands in there and we'll be mixing up this sausage and then we'll smoke it and then we'll grill it and then, you know, whatever. So we've got this huge,
00:31:52
Speaker
stuff the sausage and all the steps going through and everybody gets involved, wanders in and out as they want to help. Or same thing for fruitcake. Once a year, we make fruitcakes and we start from
00:32:06
Speaker
candying the fruit, candying the orange peel and the fruits, and then we go all the way through the steps of mixing up. We make a huge batch, so we do enormous. Then the thing with fruitcake is you can't eat it until next year. Fruitcake takes a year until you can
00:32:23
Speaker
taste it. Yeah, that's a fun thing that we do together, an experience. And so everybody gets involved on whatever level they want to. You know, some of the kids are in there from the beginning to the end, and some kids are, you know, they wander in, help here and there, and then wander back out.
00:32:42
Speaker
Anyway, gifts of experience, spending time with your kids, I think that's the time when we see our kids most energized is when we're doing things with them. Yes, totally. Probably especially for me and you who like to just get things done and not necessarily spend time having fun, that can be a big gift for kids too.
00:33:01
Speaker
So for me in the past, things that have helped me are choosing a holiday budget and sticking with it. So I know some friends who shop for holidays way ahead of time, and that is how they manage their spending. They buy their one to three gifts or whatever per kid, and then they're done, and they know that they don't need to buy anything else. So once the sales come, they're not tempted because everything is done.
00:33:21
Speaker
Whereas I do not function like that. If I start buying in October, I will continue buying all the way through December. And it will be like some toy store just exploded in my house. And I hate that. I don't want that. So just kind of learn what your trigger is, what works better for you if you are going to go the big gift giving way and you want to buy things for your family.
00:33:41
Speaker
But I have also found that even though we like to give gifts in our family at holiday time, that oftentimes I buy without a purpose just because it's the thing to do. So my husband and I have often have actually gotten to the point where we don't really buy gifts for each other in the holidays because we're blessed enough that we can save up the money for something that we really like any time of the year. And so we found that we were just going to try to find something for each other just because that's what we did and not because there was anything that we needed or really even wanted.
00:34:10
Speaker
Just kind of figure out where it is that you are, you know, where the money stress is coming from. Is it because you think that you need to keep up with your neighbors or because everybody's buying gifts? Could you have a gift free Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you're celebrating? Could you have a celebration without stuff? Like kind of revolutionary, right? We'll talk more about that in our upcoming episode. But just kind of find what your trigger is for that overspending in that stress and eliminating.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. That reminds me what you say about your husband and you not giving each other gifts. Like my husband and I kind of stopped giving each other Valentine's Day cards several years ago because it was so commercialized. And now we'll just kind of randomly at other points in the year just go buy the other one a card just because. But it just kind of feels so
00:35:01
Speaker
fake, artificial, commercial. Like, you know, somebody said we have to buy each other a card because the entire aisle at Walmart is, you know, card aisle is pink and glittery. And if we didn't, oh my goodness, can't believe you didn't. Totally. And maybe you have the strongest feelings for your husband in the calm of life and not during the chaos of the holidays or Valentine's Day or even your anniversary. And I almost feel like I'd be less inclined to, you know, share those thoughts with a card or a gift because it wasn't the time to buy gifts. Like who cares?
00:35:30
Speaker
right? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I remember walking through a store. Now my husband and I, we don't exchange Christmas gifts, but I remember walking last year through the aisles thinking, now if I was buying a Christmas gift for my husband, what would I buy him? And I just remember walking up and down and the exercise for me
00:35:53
Speaker
It was really healthy to think about him and what he would like because I had absolutely zero intention of buying him a gift because we don't exchange Christmas gifts. So it was really healthy for me to think about him and what he would like with zero pressure of actually buying him anything that was... Did you come home and say, in my mind, I bought you all these awesome things. You would have owned it.
00:36:17
Speaker
Oh, actually, what's interesting is I didn't find anything there that he would like. So I didn't buy him anything that he wouldn't, or didn't even, you know, imaginarily, that's not even a word, whatever, in my imagination. In my imagination, I didn't even buy him a gift because there was nothing there that I knew that he would really like. And I was under no pressure to buy him anything.
Building Positive Memories
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:43
Speaker
Okay, so my final thoughts on stress-free holidays are it should be about building memories. What do you want your kids to think about when they think back on the holidays when they're an adult and planning holidays for their kids? That's a good perspective to look at it from. So build those memories, but not at the expense of your personal sanity
00:37:02
Speaker
or your bank account. Those aren't really building good positive memories. And if you're looking at it from the perspective of your kids building memories for their kids in the future, you wouldn't want them to do it at the expense of their sanity or their bank account either. So sometimes that helps me to think about behaving in a way that I would want my future adult children to be behaving. Does that make sense? Yeah, I love that idea.
00:37:27
Speaker
Okay, make sure to take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself and you're all stressed out, everybody else is gonna feel that tension and be stressed out too. Mom's happier, everybody's happier. Or at least you're more able to deal with the stress that everybody else is experiencing.
00:37:44
Speaker
And my final thought is kids are happy with anything out of the ordinary. Well, hey, kids are happy with the ordinary. So anything out of the ordinary, they're pretty happy with that too. But keep it simple because a little bit of out of the ordinary, they get really excited about. But a lot of out of the ordinary, that's pretty stressful to them as well, just like we've been talking about in this episode. So keep it simple. Yeah, I love that thought. Kids really do thrive on routine. So when
00:38:11
Speaker
everything is disrupted, it's more stressful than it is enjoyable, even if they're fun things, which doesn't make sense to us as adults, but that's how it works, right? And my final thought was the same thing, that kids remember feelings more than they remember the actual gift, and sometimes even the actual experience, they remember what that felt like. And I think back to my own childhood and think, yes, I remember the magic of the season, I don't necessarily remember the gifts or the things that we did, except for the experiences that really brought me amazing feelings, right? Like one of the things that,
00:38:41
Speaker
My family like to do and that we like to do, me as a parent now, is like Secret Santa type things, you know, where you give gifts in secret to maybe needy families or maybe anyone who's having a hard time or just your neighbor, whatever. And kids just eat that stuff up and, you know, it promotes a good kind of, you know,
00:38:58
Speaker
neighborly feeling too. So just to be creative and come up with things that are going to help them feel loved and feel excited and magical instead of, you know, give, give, give, go, go, go all the time. And then if we're going to keep things fun and upbeat, that probably means lower your expectations.
00:39:17
Speaker
That's our tagline. We have all these ideas of what we want to do, but sometimes it's just better to do too little than too much. If doing too little means that you're going to stay happy and content versus doing too much and getting stressed out, do too little. That's okay, right? Yeah. Yeah. In your bread house to stress you out, skip them. If you don't like celebrating Santa, don't do it. Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't mean that you have to do it. And then once again, keep those boundaries in place with the
00:39:44
Speaker
the friends and the family that want more of your time at this time of year. Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking about something my daughter was sharing with me a while back. She said that the most poignant memories are triggered by smells. Did you know that? That's fascinating.
00:40:03
Speaker
Yeah. And so during the holidays, there are a lot of smells just because we're cooking extra things and all, you know, all the cinnamon and cloves and everything that goes with the holidays. So it really is, um, it really is important at this time. It's not just, you know, us talking about it, you know, what will your kids remember? But a lot of these smells, um, you know, the smell of citrus or, or whatever is going to trigger some memories for your kids when, when they're adults and how do you want to be remembered? So let's, uh,
00:40:32
Speaker
Let's do this right, mom. Yeah, moral of the story is stop buying gifts and just brew a lot of wasl on your stove. They'll be just happy. So that's all we have for you guys today. Good luck with the holiday season. You're going to do great and just have grace with yourself and your kids and enjoy your family. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes.
00:40:59
Speaker
If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at outnumberthepodcastatgmail.com and find us on Instagram at outnumberthepodcast. See you next week.