Traveling during the holidays can be a hectic experience; this goes for buying gifts, not knowing how to wrap, booking venues. In general the whole idea behind it is what’s called, “Holiday Stress”. Though these upcoming months are labeled, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” a lot of people find this to be a very demanding time. Of course the month holds joy too — after all, it is the holiday season, where joy is constantly hanging in the air–but stresses around creating “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” can be overwhelming. 

A lot of problems and discomfort during this time is caused due to pressure of traveling. This can arise because of the people they are traveling to seeing, or actual the process of traveling, especially with little kids. There are so many different things that contribute to stressful traveling like flight delays, traffic, cancelled flights, high prices for plane tickets and much much more!

There is no doubt that travel companies raise their prices at this time of year because they know everyone is going out to see friends and family. That unfortunately stops numerous families from seeing their loved ones, which is saddening and unfair for people all around the world. Many who felt the effects of this were outraged, expressing their discontent online. Though, this process can be difficult, finding cheaper flights and lodging is possible. A good way to avoid this problem is doing some deep research and finding safe low priced flights by using an inexpensive airline or driving to an airport that has cheaper flights. Through softwares, memberships, programs, and more, you can also find coupons!

As someone who gets overstimulated or stressed out in big crowds, it can be difficult to navigate your way through a space. Train stations, bus stations, and airports are commonly packed from corner to corner in times like these, another part that plays a role in holiday stress.

Another source of holiday stress is gift giving. Some people don’t know what to get for the others, perhaps everything “perfect” is out of stock, or they don’t know how to wrap a gift and don’t want to pay for someone else to do it. Lucky for you, if you cannot wrap a gift there are plenty of videos online to help you out!

This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux4brKS0Sac) by Real Simple does an excellent job in showing how to wrap a gift and from different viewpoints so you can get a clear image. (Just hold down on the “h” at the beginning of https, drag, copy, and paste into your browser).

If the presents you’re looking for are out of stock everywhere, you can chose to either use this ideas next year or stick to it and constantly check websites every hour of each day to see if they restock, unless you have some alternative and time saving ideas.    A way to not run into this situation again is shopping early anywhere around the summer time to October. Though it seems silly, getting gifts at that time guarantees the present for you, and if it just so happens not to be in stock at that time, continuously check and it should be in stock.

In order to shop in the summer time, you will somehow have to acquire a list of things the said person wants. A good way to approach this scenario is simply asking, “Hey, what is in your _____ cart?” Or “If you could buy anything with an unlimited budget right now what would it be?” Doing this they will reveal all sorts of material items you could consider buying them for Christmas.

Another stressor is hosting for the holidays. Hosting can be so challenging!! You have to consider everything; knowing what people like, don’t like, how to decorate, what food to buy, decorations, handling the people, and making sure everyone is having fun. Even though parties should be fun, a lot of hosts end up feeling the exact opposite and exhausted by the time the event is over.

Ultimately, the holidays are not meant to be stressful, it should be the most happiest time of the year. Let’s go ahead and highlight the amazing parts, celebrating with loved ones, honoring family, connecting closer with the community, eating food together, gifting others, and heading into the new year together, always, always, always, look on the positive side no matter what.