I don’t know about other countries but America has definitely taken the art of excess to excess. And nothing is more excessive than our holiday season. Not only does it feed the buy now, pay later monster and it’s cousin the pay more than you can afford monster, it feeds the overfeed your belly and over schedule your dragons.

            The problem is that you try to fit 80 days of joy into a 25 day period and nobody suddenly gave you 29 hours in a day or 9 days in a week. So the answer to having a truly having a freeing, joyful holiday season is in the power of the “No!”  “No!” is not being Scrooge, “No!” is taking care of yourself so that you can be the merriest of merry.

“No, I want try to make two parties on the same night.”

“No, I want have some of your cake, and your cake, and… your cake.”

“No, I can’t go into major debt to buy you a toy, or a phone, or a computer tablet.”

It’s OK to say “No!” and the sooner you do it, the less stress you have in the worrying about it time zone.

It is OK to also say “Yes!”

“Yes, I will still find time to exercise because exercise gives me energy! Not exercising makes me tired.”

“Yes, I want to spend times with my friends that energize me and make me laugh!”

“Yes, I will give myself permission to go to bed early one night.”

It is your holiday season. Take charge of your joy, your giving and it will definitely give you a nice gift of an energized, joyful time of year