Here’s to a very Happy Thanksgiving to all. Enjoy your day!!!
Tips to creating a positive holiday experience:
- Lighten up. Stop trying to have everything be perfect and instead have fun and enjoy the cooking process. Allow the children to help, get messy, and experiment. If there’s pressure to have things look good, be clean, and taste perfect, then you’ve missed the point of Thanksgiving.
- Remember it’s about relationships not tasks. If you focus on connection you’ll enjoy the experience so much more. Rather than jumping up to start cleaning off the table, relax and enjoy the conversation for a bit longer. Have an agreement with your partner beforehand about who’s going to do what and then sit back and take your time to enjoy.
- Mix things up. It’s not uncommon for the women to take on most of the cooking and cleaning during the holidays which can lead to a lot of resentment. If this is the case in your house, mix it up. If you’re the man, stop expecting others to serve you and get up and help; it’s your home too so start taking care of it. If you’re the woman, stop taking over and ask for help. If you’re family refuses to help or do their share, then lesson your load by doing less…without guilt. In the future, you’ll want to start addressing the inequality, but the holiday is not the time to take that huge change on.
- Remember to give thanks. Focus the entire day on what you’re thankful for. Randomly tell your children, partner, sister, mother, friend, etc., how thankful you are to have them in your life. Catch your loved ones doing something nice and tell them how thankful you are. Take a moment to come up with a list of things you have to be thankful for and then consciously take those gifts in.
- Treat loved ones lovingly. Share the love with others…and yourself. Have one entire day that is a no negativity zone towards others or yourself. Make sure your lens is focused on positives (what’s going well now and in your life in general) versus negatives (all the mistakes, problems and things that are going wrong). Only address the positives for this day. As my mother used to always say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” It’s even better to make it a point to go out of your way and give a compliment to yourself and others.
All too often holidays are a time of stress for families rather than a time of joy and laughter; this is unnecessary. Set your intentions for an enjoyable, peaceful, holiday early on and be determined to meet those intentions no matter what. You and your family deserve to have a great holiday season so step behind that belief and make it happen.
Here’s wishing you and yours a spectacular holiday season filled with much love, happiness, and peace.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Warmly, Lisa