Holiday Survival Guide, Part II

By Hal Runkel, LMFT

Now that you have read Part I and you’ve successfully regained your calm, you can put the following structures in place to create the kind of holiday you’ll be happy to remember.

1. Slow Down

We learned this one from our daughter Hannah when she was about 6 years old. On that Christmas morning, everyone started tearing into their presents. There were at least 15 people there and it was complete pandemonium. As I scanned the room with the video camera, I caught sight of my daughter tenderly holding a stuffed dog and shushing it. It was the first present that she had opened that morning and she hadn’t touched the rest of her huge stack. The grandparents caught sight of it as well and they began pressuring her to open the rest of her gifts. She was enjoying her dog and she saw no reason to hurry along. She was overloaded by all of the chaos and she realized something that we hadn’t: by rushing through the opening of gifts, we were actually cheapening the activity. Now, our family takes its cue from her and opens presents one person at a time, one gift at a time. Sure it takes a while, but that’s the fun part. It reduces stimulus overload, it gives time for pictures, it builds lasting memories.

2. Speed Up

The old aphorism is true: fish and visitors smell in 3 days. Keep your family “trips” short and sweet. It’s always better to leave on a good note than to overstay your welcome. If you do find yourself staying longer than you’d like, remember this fact: just because you’re staying at someone’s house, doesn’t mean you should spend all of your time together. That’s just too much pressure on everyone involved. We shouldn’t be shocked one family member lets off steam — that’s what pressure cookers do. So, build in pressure release valves in the form of one on one time with each of your kids. Let them vent. Empathize with them if they are annoyed by a cousin or if they miss their friends. By simply giving them a safe place to talk, you’ll be creating lasting memories and building relationships. If you struggle with listening (a difficult skill, to be sure), remember the three best words you can use to get kids talking: “Tell me more.”

3. Idle

Take care of yourself during these most stressful of days. Take a really long shower — go see a movie — take a walk — go and get some coffee. Recharge and renew. If you can take mini-retreats away from it all — even in the midst of it all, you’ll be better equipped to be calm, cool, and connected when you return.

Hal Runkel, LMFT, is the author of ScreamFree Parenting and founder of ScreamFree Living. For more information, visit www.screamfree.com

Holiday Survival Guide, Part I

By Hal Runkel, LMFT

When Andy Williams sang the lyric, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”, he must have been joking. What with presents to buy, parties to attend, and cheer to spread, we often find ourselves wondering what the heck is so happy about the holidays. If that describes you at all, it’s time for a little ScreamFree in your life. Here are three principles to guide you through the holidays with your sanity in tact.

1. Our kids are going to reflect our own attitudes and emotions.

If they are anxious, they are picking that up from us; if they are ungrateful, it’s because we’ve trained them to be that way; if they are unruly, it’s because we’ve allowed the craziness of the holiday to override their need for structure. Just the other day, I saw a bumper sticker that perfectly illustrates this concept. It read: My kids think I’m an ATM machine. This begs the question . . . Where did they get that crazy idea?

A common complaint that I get around the holidays is that kids are acting greedy when the holiday is supposed to be about giving. By recognizing the fact that kids are feeding off of our energy way more than we can ever imagine, we can start to see that we train our kids to be greedy by giving them far too much — it’s not the other way around.

If you find yourself frustrated with your children around the holidays, stop for a moment and take a look at what messages you are sending out.

2. Family vacation is an oxymoron.

Jerry Seinfeld said it best when he declared, “There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.” You don’t vacation with your children to see your family. You travel. Few things are more taxing than packing up the kids and braving the airport or the highways during the holiday season. If we kept that in mind, we might be able to keep our cool a bit better. But, when we either travel to be with our loved ones or they travel to be with us, we tend to forget how hard it is and we put far too much pressure on ourselves and those around us to have a “happy holiday”. We idealize the holiday season and begin to look for it to make up for the difficult things inherent in any family unit. In short, we expect the holidays to be the salve of the year.

With so much riding on this “vacation”, we tend to put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves and everyone else to have a wonderful time. We set our expectations unrealistically high and feel like failures when reality falls short.

So, if Jerry was right, what can we do? There are two things you can do to release some of that pressure before it even begins to build:

* Find a middle ground between Norman Rockwell and Norman Bates. If we temper our expectations with a healthy dose of reality and perspective, the chances of actually having a fun family holiday increase dramatically. A simple phrase to remember might be, “It won’t be the worst holiday ever unless I try to make it the best.”

* Live in the present. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.” And starting right after Halloween, retail stores, commercials, and radio stations start pushing you towards those perfect holiday plans before you can even steal the last KitKat from your child’s candy stash. This may sound strange, but try this tip: Talk about plans only when absolutely necessary.

While some amount of anticipation is enjoyable, too much of it will actually increase the level of expectations we have and it will ultimately distract you from the present, which is really where your kids need you the most.

3. Remember it’s always easier to complain than it is to change.

Take a moment to think about what goes on with your children or your extended family during the holidays that just drives you nuts.

* Little Jason throws a tantrum because grandma bought him the wrong video game. * Your mother spoils your kids rotten and makes your presents look like a joke. * Your brother and his ungrateful brood leave their dirty clothes all over your floor and never pitch in after dinner to clean up.

Now think about this: It is far easier to point out what everyone else does during the holidays to make life miserable, but it’s far more difficult to point out our own shortcomings. But even though it is certainly more difficult, it is ultimately more beneficial. Remember, you are the only one that you can change. The next time you find yourself frustrated with your kids, remember this fact. Buying into this concept can allow you to focus on yourself and begin creating the type of holiday you’ve always wanted.

If you really want to have a better, more peaceful holiday this year with your kids (or anyone for that matter), turn the tables on traditional finger pointing. Instead of finding blame, ask questions! Ask your spouse and your kids what you do around the holidays that seems to get under their skin.

Read more….Holiday Survival Guide, Part II

Hal Runkel, LMFT, is the author of ScreamFree Parenting and founder of ScreamFree Living. For more information, visit www.screamfree.com

More than 30 Days of Night - Top Tips for Avoiding the Debt Vampires this Christmas

By: Andrew Leatherland

For some Christmas can be more of a horror story than a celebration of light. It can bring a nightmare where every day seems darker than the next. This is because the only way to pay for seems to involve going to the banks cap in hand to find the extravagant amounts of cash.

The problem is that the nightmare can be never ending. Like a nightmare that has more than 30
days of night, debt can be like a vampire, drinking every last drop of money you have, especially when you don’t have much to begin with. Loans or credit cards have to be paid and so often the payment for one Christmas extends well beyond the next one.

With a little thought and some work the debt could be avoided or at least brought to a more acceptable level. Try some of these tips to help you avoid the darkness that is the Christmas debt nightmare.

1) Know what you’re getting into - too many people walk blindly into Christmas debt. They assume they’ll just go out and get a loan. Strange though it sounds, it’s almost like they forget it has to be paid back. Don’t make this mistake this year. Go into Christmas with your eyes wide open. It’s best to avoid them but if you’re insistent that you’ll get a loan, find a comparison website and shop hard for the best deal. Shop harder for the best deal than you would for any other gift this Christmas. Believe me your happiness depends on it. Better still…..

2) Don’t Get a Loan - Get a Business Opportunity. There are many internet / home based business opportunities out there. They can be the nearest thing to an interest free loan. It’s just a way of turning the debt on its head. By working to bring in extra money, you’re not trying to fund Christmas from you existing resources, plus you’re avoid a loan and therefore avoid interest. Internet based opportunities can be great because once they’re set up and promoted, they can be working for you even when you’re not focusing on them.

3) Agree Your Budget - Have a plan this Christmas to save your spending. Too many people head out to the shops with no clear idea in mind. They drift from shop to shop and buy randomly. This lack of focus takes so many people into higher levels of spending than they can afford. You need to decide your budget for Christmas before you go shopping.

4) Talk to your friends and family - Christmas is so stale it’s untrue. People buy presents without real thought. Pretty much everyone does it. Worse still, so many people buy gifts for others, only because the other person buys a present for them. Trouble is the other person only does it because you bought for them. My advice is to bring Christmas up and talk about presents in your conversation. Done right, you’ll often find you can come to an agreement not to have buy presents for each other this year. Think about how much money you’ll save! Do the same for family and younger children. You’ll be amazed how many people are just waiting for the other person to say something. These conversations can also be used to agree a limit for children. Don’t just barge in though by saying your cutting back. See how the conversation goes so you can avoid arguments.

5) Have a plan. Plan your food, plan your gifts, and plan your card list. Once you have it stick to it as tightly as you can. The stores, toymakers and banks have planned to squeeze as much cash out of you as possible. You need to plan just as hard as them to hang onto as much as possible.

6) Cut Your Christmas Card List. Think about it? You send yours to a huge list of people including co-workers and they send you a load back. Shortly after Christmas, they’re all in the trash. Ever thought about being the first at work to send an e-mail suggesting that rather than sending each other cards you agree to put the money into a charity instead. Set a limit below what you would normally spend on cards and put it to a not for profit organisation instead. Now that’s real giving!

7) Shop Hard! - No I don’t mean to spend vast amounts. Shopping hard involves looking for the best bargains. Use the internet. Price comparison websites are everywhere. Use them to drive the hardest bargain you can for a gift.

8 Start Early - The earlier you start gathering what you need for Christmas, the more paychecks you can spread the burden over, therefore reducing your need for credit.

9) Plan your menu. Virtually everyone buys more food than they need for Christmas. So much of it goes to waste. Imagine what it would look like if it were pure cash in the waste - because that’s what it is really. Plan a careful menu and remember it’s not the amount of food, it’s the time you have at the table that’s the real joy of Christmas dinner.

10) Remember why it’s Christmas. You don’t have to spend vast amounts of money to show how much you love your friends and family. You can save so much cash by tuning in to the meaning of Christmas. One thing my grandmother always tells me is that if you do the good things for people all year round, you don’t need to splash vast amounts of cash on them. That’s about showing people and telling them - not splashing your (or the banks cash).

Andrew Leatherland is passionate about people having the best life possible and wants this Christmas to be their first step to a whole new debt free life. If you’re looking to have a Christmas free of money worries visit his blog at http://worryfreechristmas.blogspot.com

Article Source: EzineArticles.com