Think of a holiday and all those pleasant things come to your mind – sharing carefree and happy hours with your loved ones. However, holidays can be stressful, because of underlying tensions you have in your family. You don’t want your holiday to turn out to be a dreaded time, do you! After all, holidays come around once a year and we cope with family tension all the year round.

Holiday sojourns are all about spending days with family members who don’t usually get much time together because of work-load, school commitments, or spatial distances. People fall back into their old behavioral pattern, old arguments crop up and long-buried issues come to the surface. They can belch out their pent up grudges and that causes more tension. Besides, there may be people in the group who are exhausted from weeks of shopping, planning and decorating, teenagers who are opposed to intrusion of their space and time, and young children who are unsure about what it’s like to have company. The stress cycle begins.

If you are a host of a family holiday event, you may discover that the stress of arranging for a perfect holiday begins many weeks before the holiday actually arrives. It requires an attitudinal change and a lifestyle change that few people are comfortable to make. With honest try, you can create a perfect family holiday season and make things more manageable.

•    Learn to accept that holidays are inevitable and to accommodate holidays you have to keep your mind and heart open, so that things can fall in place.

•    The notion of perfect holiday is different for everyone – accept it! Holiday is just a part of a real-world scenario, and you can’t expect people to change just because it is a holiday. Tensions may chip in, but in the grand scheme of things it does not matter, keep it in perspective.

•    Think of your budget while you’re on a holiday spree. Make a list of the things you need to buy and try to be faithful to that. Holiday spending can easily get out of control and leave you enough financial worries for the New Year ahead. Calculate your budget in advance and don’t just step over those estimates.

•    If you don’t have a heart to go to a holiday excursion, don’t let guilt or a misplaced sense of obligation force you to attend those gatherings. Pick events you know you will enjoy and that means something to you and you will have a great time.

•    Think of what you exactly want from your children or spouse to behave in such holiday outings. Do you want them to be the smiling faces in all family photos, functions, holiday activities! Don’t invite stress just because they are not behaving the way you think they should. Value their expectations too and talk about it.

When you are planning a holiday bash, try to think in real terms, focus on the people you love, don’t squander, flaunt your sense of humor and that will keep stress away. Life is short. Celebrate every precious time you get to spend with your loved ones, and of all things, enjoy to the brim.