Dealing with Holiday Stress: Tips and Tricks

My biggest strategy is to not buy into the stereotypical greetings card and hallmark movie style Christmas celebration and instead cater it to meet the needs of our individual household, of which all are ND, some with significant health conditions which can be impacted by and impact celebration days. We have a very low-key, reduced stress Christmas doing what everyone actually wants to do to mark the holiday, not what we feel we should be keeping pace with because everyone else is doing it. For us it looks like not wasting gift wrap and dealing with the sensory nightmare of all the ripping paper, it's not staring expectantly at a person opening their gifts and instead going at their pace and waiting for an invite to share in whatever joy they want to share, not making a huge meal for meals sake which most people don't enjoy, hanging out as a family playing a couple of games with whoever wants to and not pressuring those who don't, and celebrating each and every person under our roof in the way that suits them best.

I made a list and organized everything in my calendar so I just did a little bit every week starting after Thanksgiving, so by the time Christmas rolled around, I wasn't stressed about gifts or plans. Am I still stressed bc I don't particularly enjoy the holiday? Yeah. But I don't feel as overwhelmed

Lately, giving myself fun projects to distract myself from stressful holiday stuff is what helps. Listening to music other than christmas music in this case, while doing everyday tasks.