I recently saw a post that made my blood boil. To be honest, it was an innocent post about what to do with the time between the Catholic Christmas (because Orthodox Christmas is in January) and New Years’ Eve. I think the intention of someone who wrote it was to give ideas for things to do. I also think someone who wrote this post is about 25 years old. When I was 25, I had more energy and more time than ever (but less money) and I felt I had to do something every weekend, regardless if there was an occasion or not. Things are different now. Even if I was on vacation between the holidays, not working, it does not mean I need to do something productive with my time, like going to museums, seeing all the friends or starting an art project. If you got energy to do it – good for you, you can stop reading this post. However, if you feel tired to do anything, read on…

One of the ways to get more productive at work is to take breaks (and lunches) to ensure we stay focused and energized. Let’s apply the same logic to the time we spend at home during the holidays – let’s use it to get energized before the next year by doing less.

Holiday preparations, as jolly as they are, add a lot of pressure, stress and activities to our already busy lives. Having to find and buy gifts, having to wrap them, planning holiday activities and then attending all of them, shopping for clothing, planning/finding/ordering/cooking/storing food, and so on. Even writing this list got me exhausted, no wonder we feel tired by end of the year!

If we try to cheat the holidays by traveling to avoid all the cooking and hosting, then there are more activities to do associated with traveling. On top of either planning we also feel pressure to “wrap up” our year by reflecting about our achievements both at work and home. We also think about our personal achievements – did we end up losing all those extra pounds or reading the 30 books we committed to read 365 days ago? That sounds like a lot of pressure to me.

I think we need to stop adding things to our plates and give ourselves a break without feeling bad about it. In fact, let’s try to reduce the number of things we do to prepare for the holidays and celebrate being unproductive. Spent a whole day mindlessly watching movies in your pijamas? This is great! Ordered delivery instead of making a 5-course meal from scratch? Good for you, more time for yourself!

We always try to compete and strive for excellence – with the gifts we pick, how we wrap them, how we decorate, what and how we bake, how we look while doing all this. What if instead we stop pressuring ourselves and each other and take it easy?

When we were children, the most memorable holidays were not the ones where the holiday table resembled Michelin star restaurant and the decorations were instagramable. The holidays I remember are the ones where we spent time with our family dancing, playing in the snow or looking at fireworks. Let’s focus on getting quality time with our loved ones instead of the quality and perfection of all the physical things that surround us. We can always order pizza instead of the turkey, wear pijamas instead of elaborate outfits and just be. Let’s celebrate (or prepare to celebrate) by getting the rest we need!