As the holidays approach again, I find myself thinking of how much the holidays stress out my friends and family while I remain unfazed. Friends of mine will remark on how exhausting visiting all of the relatives can be, while I look forward to time at home with my family. Family members will complain of parties ruined by the inevitable bad behavior of this cousin or that aunt, while I think fondly on the near-disasters or drunken escapades of holidays past. Shopping consumes most people, feverishly searching for something to hastily wrap and shove at someone, pretending all the while that it is a thoughtful gift, while I manage to find gifts that people actually want. All of this gives the impression that I am some calm in the eye of the storm, deftly handling all of the holidays with Martha Stewart precision, when nothing could be further from the truth - I just know what to keep and what to lose, and knowing that (as well as knowing yourself) will remove most of the pain from the holidays.

     The first step in keeping your holidays stress free is to examine what you want your holidays to be. Do you want to travel? Do you want to stay home? Do you want to have people over? Step one is figuring this out and then acting on it. When my family was small I realized that I wanted to be in my own home, in my pajamas, drinking a mimosa on Christmas morning. So I made that happen. My parents and I get together at other times to celebrate other things, but Christmas happens at my home. Thanksgiving has been a special holiday for me since I discovered that I could cook, and our tradition will always be that my door is open on Thanksgiving to anyone who has no family to go to. As a result, my guest list for that holiday has included my parents, close friends, and coworkers. One of my favorite memories is having three bachelors over one year in addition to my husband and children. Be selfish and decide what thing is going to make you happy and do that.

   Whether you are having people over for thanksgiving or throwing a party, the most important part of that is the menu. Ease of preparation and a diversity of foods makes your life much easier. At Thanksgiving, I work up a very traditional menu - turkey, stuffing, peas, mashed potatoes, and then each person that is going to be eating that meal gets to choose a menu item, no matter how strange, to be added to the menu. One year my son requested peanut butter and jelly on crackers, so that was among the appetizers. This approach to a large menu means that everyone gets to be included, and every single person has his or her favorite dish on the table. It also means that the menu makes itself. Make as many things in advance as you can but remember to DELEGATE! If you can let go of needing to have the pumpkin pie be exactly the way your mother made made it, then you can ask one of your guests to bring it. The point of the meal is being together, not having sweet potato casserole (again). The real trick is to remember this: cooking for other people can be stressful, because you want things to be just right, but the earth will still turn if your food isn't perfect. On my shopping list ever year is canned or jarred gravy to go with the meat. That way, when I fail at making gravy, I have back up. If things are REALLY bad, remember that Chinese restaurants are usually open on the holidays.

      Examine your traditions. Are they making your family happy, or are they adding to your stress? The best way to organize your holiday activites is to make a list of the things that you would like to do; go caroling, make a gingerbread house, make a million cookies, make tamales, whatever. Sit down at the beginning of the season and think of all of the things that you and your family like to do during this time of year. As crazy as this is going to sound, add more things to your list. New things that you have never done, old things that you used to do. Make sure that the list has a good variety of different commitment levels and degrees of difficulty - making a gingerbread house from scratch takes most of a day, but crafting ornaments out of kits takes just an hour or so. As you look at the impending calendar, be realistic about what you can get to and what you cant, and remember that it is the quality of the activities, not the quantity. As you run out of time, cross things off your list. Our list at the holidays is immense, and having most of the supplies at hand means that we can choose do do a project whenever the mood strikes us. Most of all, we are all aware that traditions are what we make of them, and the best tradition is simply being together. One Christmas we didn't even eat our Christmas dinner because we all ate too many snacks in the afternoon. So we had it the next day. Try to remember that you aren't out to impress anyone, and if you are then you should try to figure out why.

      Gifts are a singularly difficult aspect of the holiday season, and there is no advice to give on how to best approach them. In these lean times I have opted for making gifts for our friends and family, homey things that will make them think of me all year. This year all of my girlfriends are getting knitted dishrags and a Christmas cactus that came from a plant my great grandmother had. Those items may sound horribly boring, but my friends will love them, not for what they are but for the thought that went into them. A big time and money saver is to shop ahead - but I don't mean a little ahead - I mean a whole year ahead. I go shopping two weeks after Christmas to buy Christmas things....ornaments, crafts, paper, whatever. Last year I got snow globes for the kids to decorate for their grandparents for seventeen cents each. I am not a plan ahead kind of girl, but I do enjoy a great deal, so this is a great way to do it.

     People put too much importance on the strangest things, and if you can learn to let go of how you think a holiday HAS to be, then you will start to enjoy it (and your family) more. Try new things, eliminate things that don't make you happy, have a better life