Have you ever noticed how time seems limited during the holiday season? How stressed you can be by family relationships and unresolved conflict? And what about setting a budget for holiday spending and gift-giving? Setting boundaries with yourself and family members can help you strengthen your priorities around time, emotions, and finances this holiday season.
Setting Boundaries with Family Members
Holiday anxiety may manifest from having a lack of regulated, healthy boundaries with family members. Boundaries addressed may be physical, emotional, time, intellectual, material, or even financial. Especially around the holidays, I find that setting financial, time, and emotional boundaries are what clients struggle with most.
Setting Financial Boundaries
Avoiding holiday debt is a huge tactic for holiday stress management. You might consider looking to relevant resources for budgeting tips for the holidays, or even setting money boundaries for holiday spending with family members. For example, you might work on managing gift-giving expectations in your family through discussing a comfortable budget based on everyone’s spending capacity. Or, you might discuss the option to explore secondhand or handmade gifts.
Setting Time Boundaries
Feeling stretched for time is part of why the holidays feel overwhelming. Time management tips for the holidays include setting time boundaries like setting expectations for how long you can attend events, prioritizing certain events over others, or even saying no to holiday commitments you can’t afford to commit to. Managing a busy holiday schedule might look like saying no to events you want to attend, but know that skipping out might help you with avoiding holiday burnout. If saying no without guilt during the holidays is difficult, consider re-focusing on your own life values. For example, “I am saying no to this event because it does not align with my life value of spending a majority of my time with my children.”
Setting Emotional Boundaries
Emotional stress during the holidays is sometimes triggered by a lack of setting emotional boundaries with others. Setting healthy boundaries with family might have to occur when you are dealing with toxic relatives during the holidays. Consider starting with a positive I-statement when you are protecting your mental health during family gatherings, such as, “I feel honored that you want me to stay for another hour.” Then continue into setting healthy boundaries before re-focusing on the positive again, such as, “I would like to get back home to prepare for my work day tomorrow. Again, I’ve had a great time and thank you for hosting.”
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