The Holidays – Happy Times or Just More Stress

Everyone I know, whether they are a family caregiver or not, approaches the holidays with a mixture of anticipation and dread. The anticipation part is filled with memories of childhood, going to grandma's for Thanksgiving holiday dinner and jumping in the leaf pile, or eating her special stuffing and apple pie. Christmas conjures up images of hanging your special ornaments on the Christmas tree and the house decorated with garlands and smelling of cookies. Some families are lighting the first candles of Hanukkah and tingling with the thought that you get to open at least one new present for the next seven nights or smelling the special foods that can only mean Kwanzaa. Everyone is celebrating at this time of year.

But we aren't kids any more and the responsibility for creating those memorable events falls on our shoulders, or we think it does. The holidays bring extra work, from addressing cards to buying presents, baking cookies, and decorating the house; the list goes on, and with it added stress. We family caregivers of course need extra work like we need a hole in our head, and we need even less, the emotional stress that past memories create, and our dreams of what the holidays should be thrive on.

For family caregivers the holidays truly are a mixed bag. The question is what we can do about it. What can we do to lessen the workload and keep the extra stress under control? How can we be sure that we - the family caregivers - also have time to enjoy the holidays?

Here are some thoughts:

• Decide what for you are the best parts of the holidays. What are the things you "really" like doing? What are the parts that really are a chore? You see where I am going with this.
  
• Do a few of the things that give you pleasure and shed the ones that are a chore - insist that someone else do them or just let them go. There are no rules, writ large in the sky that say you have to chop down your own Christmas tree or you must make potato pancakes from scratch. These may have always been part of your family tradition, but they don't have to be. You can start new traditions; ones that better fit your current circumstances. You have the power to do that. The question is do you have, or can you develop, the will.
  

That's the crux of it really, gaining control over the holidays rather than letting the holidays control you. I randomly asked some other family caregivers I know what do they do to keep holiday stress under control. Here's their advice:

• Shop by catalogue or on line. You can do it any time of day or night, and there are never any lines. Buy some family members the same thing every year - boxes of oranges or gift certificates to their favorite store. That solves two problems in one. You don't have to drive yourself crazy deciding what to get and it is a whole lot less stressful than actually going to the mall.
  
• Give yourself a present, something you look forward to every year, a candle lit bath on New Years eve, watching - yet again - A Miracle on 34th Street, or going to tea with a special friend or two.

There is no magic pill that we can all take to rid ourselves of holiday stress, but there are things we can do, and that's the point. It all begins with deciding to take charge of your life and not letting some vision of life during the holidays, take charge of you.