The holiday season can be fun and fulfilling; it can also be overwhelming and stressful.
In a small book titled Simplify Your Christmas: 100 Ways to Reduce the Stress and Recapture the Joy of the Holidays, Elaine St. James raises interesting observations about how we celebrate the holidays (applicable whether Christmas or other), questions that can pertain beyond this particular season to how we live our lives year-round:
1) “[R]ediscover the things you truly love about the holidays. When you take a close look, you’ll see that those things don’t take huge amounts of time or cost a lot of money.”
2) Simplifying and organizing are not the same: “When you organize, you are just reshuffling the same heavy load. When you simplify, you actually eliminate a large chunk of it.”
3) “By cutting back, (starting with making lists of “what absolutely must be done, what can be done if time allows, and what can be eliminated entirely”) you won’t lose the spirit, you’ll find it.”
In eleven suggestion-filled sections, St. James covers topics including:
- Getting Started
- Creating a New Approach
- Kids and Christmas
- Decking the Halls… Cooking the Goose… and Making Merry
- Holiday Spending
If simplifying holds an appeal for you, St. James has also written a number of other books on simplifying life beyond the holiday season. Each book, like the holiday book, is chock full of practical suggestions. If you like her approach, the following titles might help you carry the theme of “simplifying” your life, as a way to reduce stress and recapture happiness, throughout the year:
Any of these books may be available at your local library. All are also available, used, through amazon.com for as little as one cent each!
For help in simplifying your life any time of year, consider coaching! Contact me at www.lizahmann.com to set up a no-cost initial consultation. Wishing you a season of joy!
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