First, thank you for being a subscriber to this newsletter. I do my best to provide good ideas and useful perspectives for you and hope you continue to find it a valuable few minutes to read. Just a quick perspective on the holidays this week. 

Can You Take Time for Yourself This Holiday Season?

I hope this stretch of the holiday season between today and the start of the New Year is good for you. We celebrate Chanukah and Christmas in our home, and since the festival of lights started right after Thanksgiving this year, I feel like it’s been an especially hectic time. It’s inevitable that we end up busier than usual during the holidays. There is just more to do. Coupled with the additional year end or month end crunch of business activities, we add traveling, shopping, parties, decorating, and extra time with friends and family. The way we celebrate can be great, but it’s also exhausting at times.

Celebration and tradition requires some effort. To avoid becoming so overwhelmed and tired that you are unable to enjoy the moments, you also need to put effort into taking care of yourself. Here are a few things you should think about doing this holiday season:

• Spend time meditating
• Get a massage
• Accept imperfection (one burnt side dish won’t ruin someone’s holiday)
• Unplug from technology (try at least 48 hours if you can)
• Treat yourself - don’t feel guilty about spending money on you!
• Prioritize sleep
• Ask for help – you don’t have to prepare everything
• Go on a walk by yourself
• Learn to say “no”
• Time a moment to be grateful for what you have
• Set appropriate expectations
• Allow yourself to lose track of time

So take time for you this season. Incorporating these behaviors into your holiday will allow you to refill your cup and more fully enjoy time with others.

It’s Okay to Not be Okay

Also, while the holidays often provide joy and reason for celebration, many of us also experience moments of sadness or grief this time of year. Take this as your permission or reminder to let that be okay too.

• Maybe it’s the first holiday without a loved one who has passed. Or the tenth. Or twentieth.
• Maybe this time of the year reminds you of difficult times in your past.
• Maybe you are contemplating your mortality and thinking there may not be many left. Or maybe you know this is your last or your last with someone you love.
• Maybe you have some trauma in your childhood that echoes during the holidays.
• Maybe financial hardships feel particularly poignant this time of year.

And so many other reasons why you may feel the holidays tinged or completely clouded with emotions other than peace and joy. It’s important to honor the difficult, sad, or even angry feelings we have during the holidays. Give them some acceptance, some space, some time to be felt. Those feelings are messages about something important to you.

And hopefully, once given their proper space and respect, you can also make room for some more pleasant emotions.

I hope you have at least a few moments of peace and joy through the next couple of weeks.