Tis the Season for Stress for No Reason

Well, here we are in the holiday season. Are you enjoying your new part time job?

My friend Julianne, who is a health and fitness coach, jokes with her clients that the holiday season is like taking on a part time job. When you stop to think about it, it’s true. In addition to the job you do all year long, whether it be in an office, on the road or at home, you add the equivalent hours of a part time job once the holidays roll around.

From mid-November through the end of the year feel free to add personal shopper, interior decorator, chef, cookie maker, chauffer, wrapper (not the bling bling kind), party host, music critic, mind reader and mediator to your resume. These are the valuable skills you’ll need to survive all the holiday parties, gift exchanges, seasonal concerts and a zillion other commitments before January 1st.

Some people, however, thrive under pressure. They love a challenge and look for any and all ways to add to their already crowded schedule this time of year. So for those of you who just can’t get enough stress, here are a few sure-fire ways to raise your blood pressure during the holidays.

-Host or attend a cookie swap. Yes, we all love fresh holiday cookies this time of year, and what better way to enjoy a variety of them than by attending a cookie swap? It sounds like such a good idea until you remember that you have to actually bake several dozen cookies to bring to the swap. Forget about buying cookies and passing them off as your own. Seasoned swappers can sniff out a store bought cookie before they cross the threshold. So when you’re baking those forty-dozen cookies for friends, family, co-workers, church members and teachers, remember to churn out an extra six or seven dozen to swap. What are a few hundred cookies in the grand scheme of things?

-Participate in an online recipe exchange. We all love to share new recipes around the holidays, don’t we? Isn’t Christmas the best time to jump on board an electronic chain letter? A friend sent me the email the other day, asking me to send one simple recipe to the name at the bottom of the list, add my name and then send it to 20 of my friends within 5 days. My favorite line was “Seldom does anyone drop out because we all need new recipes”. I replied to her immediately, thanking her for thinking of me, then continued, “If you ever again ask me to participate in a recipe exchange during the holiday season, I will beat you with a candy cane. Merry Christmas.” She replied that she understood and admitted that the recipes she had received so far were for a horrible clam dish, Ambrosia, and a sodium-loaded recipe for chuck roast smeared in onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup. Find me in February when I have nothing else to do and I’ll be happy to send you something better than Ambrosia.

-Four little words: Elf-on-the-Shelf…’nuff said.

-Send yourself into a tizzy wondering what to get your child’s teachers. And their therapists. Their coaches. Their bus drivers. Your mailman. Your garbage man. Your paperboy, cleaning woman, babysitter, dog-walker, lawn-care professional, Tae Kwon Do instructor and hairdresser. We have the British to thank for this “Boxing Day” tradition of gifting all our service personnel. Thanks Great Britain, we’ll send you the bill come January.

-And speaking of gifts…in addition to all the holiday gift shopping you’re doing, offer to do the shopping for your siblings, your parents and your in-laws. My relatives all live out of town. My sisters work full time, my parents are older and my in-laws are retired but still very busy. Plus I know what my kids want, so it makes sense for me to purchase all the gifts my family is giving to my children…and organizing them…and wrapping them…and carting them to my in-laws…and I think I need my head examined. And a drink.

And speaking of drinks…host a party. Any party. It doesn’t matter when you host it in December, you will be competing with a thousand other holiday parties and you may end up with five guests or fifty. Your home must be clean and decorated to look like a mash up of “Everyday with Rachel Ray” and “Martha Stewart Living”. Don’t buy your decorations, that’s cheating. You must decoupage every ornament by hand and weave your own napkins from wool gathered from the sheep raised in your back yard. Don’t forget to hand hammer your own paper for Christmas cards while you’re at it.

If you’ve tried all these things and still crave a challenge this holiday season, I have one more suggestion for you: Come over to my house, wrap all my presents, address all my holiday cards, hang my Christmas lights and bake a few thousand cookies for me.

Consider it my Christmas gift to you.