Holiday stress anyone? Holiday blues? The holiday time no doubt is a festive time, but can be a quite stressful time as well. Finding joy can be challenging despite all the Christmas songs, good food, hot cocoa, and wine ?.

While it is certainly nice to spend time with friends and family during the holiday time, time to regroup and refocus on what is really important is needed.  After all, Jesus is the reason for the season- or at least He’s what the season is supposed to be about.          A couple of months ago, I certainly was not feeling the joy of the season. Up until recently, I felt like a Scrooge in some ways. The big commercial focus associated with Christmas turned me off to celebrating Christmas.  As a somewhat “frugal” person ? I didn’t feel excited about having another reason to spend, and I didn’t want to feel forced to do some of the traditional things associated with the holiday. I knew that I didn’t want to feel that way but was unsure of how to change the way I felt.  I was encouraged to stumble upon an article about regaining the Christmas spirit. After reading through the article, I found it helpful to think differently about the holidays and Christmas in particular. For those of you interested to read on your own, you can copy and paste the following link in your browser: 
https://www.crosswalk.com/slideshows/lost-your-christmas-spirit-10-easy-ways-to-get-it-back.html

As I continued to think about how to also change my perspective from feeling the stress and anxiety of the season, to a calmer experience, I decided to focus on the bigness of God.  I am reading about God’s grandeur in the youversion devotional application. For those of you interested to check it out, you can copy and paste the following link https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/14238/day/6?segment=0 .  Reading the devotionals have been a good reminder that while anxiety, depression and stressors experienced during this season in common, they do not have to be my endpoint.  Focusing on God’s goodness and his bigness is a helpful way to focus less on my stress and the things that come up from time to time that try to steal my joy.  During the busyness of the season, it is important we take time for ourselves-in whichever ways that equal our betterment.  Mentally, physically, and spiritually, we all need a reprieve to make sure we’re managing the stress that arises in the best ways that we can. For me, reading Bible devotionals have been helpful to my mind, body, spirit connection.

What are some of the ways you choose to cope with stressors that arise during the holiday season?

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