Think Well
Article

Beat stress this Christmas by being prepared! It may be the most wonderful time of the year, but Christmas can actually add up to a whole lot of stress and worry if you don't apply a bit of careful planning.

Although it may feel like the festive season is still way, way off, it will creep up faster than you think and by ignoring it, you could be putting unnecessary stress on your mental wellbeing.

Lovely Christmas.co.uk states that "the best thing to do is be prepared".

"To do that you need to plan what you need to buy and prioritise," it pointed out.

If you want to ensure this Christmas is your most laidback ever, why not get out your diary and mark out things to do each week in order to get ready?

First of all, it's important to decide now where you're going to have your main Christmas meal - this can cause lots of arguments between husbands and wives over who’ll be invited for dinner!

Next, it's a good idea to start shopping for presents as soon as possible. Not only does this mean spreading your budget out, it also means you’ll avoid having to spend every spare minute in December dashing around the shopping centre.

Better still, you could order online as there's still lots of time to get all your gifts delivered! Just two presents a week from now on will make a huge difference to your stress levels.

When it comes to food, you obviously can't buy it all now even if you are cooking on Christmas Day and want to get prepared. However, you can order the turkey from your local butcher, get hold of a Christmas Pudding, buy in alcohol and even bake your own Christmas cake in advance. All of this will save you precious time in the run-up to the big day.

Lovely Christmas also recommends making a list of things you intend to buy so nothing gets forgotten.

Finally, you can take a big weight off your mind by sorting out your Christmas cards early. Make a list again so you can tick everyone off, get hold of a bumper pack of greetings cards before they all sell out and spend just half an hour a week writing, licking and sticking.

This way, you'll have them all done by the last posting dates and you'll even have time to add personal messages to distant friends instead of frantically scrawling a quick autograph.

There's no such thing as the perfect Christmas, but you could make it a lot less stressful by getting organised. Then feel free to sit down with a hot chocolate and a mince pie while those who left it until the last minute hotfoot it to the packed-out shops!