It’s Christmas again. Happy Holidays! The atmosphere is all calm and serenity, we are all full of festive spirit and goodwill to all men, and everything is organized

Who are we trying to kid?

In reality the Christmas holidays can be stressful. There’s the practical stuff of course, like gifts, food and parties. Families can be an issue too—step families, relatives we feel sorry for but who nobody really likes and family dynamics all play a part.

Cash issues can cause friction too. The Christmas credit card bill gets bigger every year despite Black Friday and stores pretending to be on sale. Also, for some people, the holidays are a lonely time; everyone else seems to be focused on their families, friends and significant others so if you already feel isolated, it can be an even more isolating time of year to get through.

To help with the issues that Christmas brings, and to help you really enjoy the fun stuff, we’ve got Ten Commandments for a Less Stressful Christmas.

Get yourself a cup of chamomile tea, take a deep breaths, schedule a massage and remember that even through it feels like your to-do list will never end, getting stressed is terribly counterproductive. December will be over before you notice, and it comes back around every year. Even if it’s a disaster this year there’s always next Christmas.

10 Commandments for a Less Stressful Christmas – we hope you have an absolutely awesome time and a very happy 2019…..

• Thou shalt not even try to be perfect
• Thou shalt not spread thyself too thin and wear thyself out.
• Thou shalt learn to say “NO” and actually mean it.
• Thou shalt not try to be everything to everybody – you will just end up being no good to anybody.
• Thou shalt leave undone some of the things that you think ought to be done – they probably don’t, really.
• Thou shalt make time for thyself.
• Thou shalt learn to switch off and do nothing whenever you feel you have to
• Thou shalt be as boring, untidy, or unattractive as you feel like being
• Thou shalt not feel guilty about any of the above things, at all.

PS: These commandments apply to the rest of the year too!