
Let’s be real… while there are so many reasons to love the holidays, they can be super stressful. Between buying and wrapping gifts, cooking, getting the house ready and all of the gatherings, it’s just go-go-go until the end of the year. So I’ve found a few ways to lessen the stress for you and your family this holiday season.
This post is sponsored by Milo’s Tea Company.
Have Guests Bring a Dish
I’m known to be the girl that wants to cook a feast. I take on way more than I can handle and it totally stresses me out, every single time. So this year, we are asking each guest to bring a dish with them. This will cut down on the amount of cooking I personally have to do and will give us more of a variety for all of our friends and family!
Have Your Kids Create Decor
I don’t know about your kids, but mine love arts and crafts (or craps, as Falynn calls them). So this year, instead of investing in expensive decor, I took the girls to our local craft store and had them make all of the decor for the table! I love how they all came out and the best part is, they created two different pieces that our guests can take home with them, a snowman jar filled with yogurt covered pretzels and a reindeer jar filled with hot cocoa mix. They also created a wish tree, where our guests can write what they wish for, for the new year, on the construction paper ornaments we created and then hang it up on the tree. There are so many options and it keeps the kids busy while you get the house ready!
Serve Milo’s Tea
It’s important to serve the perfect beverage. For our family, that’s Milo’s Tea, the beverage of choice for holiday gatherings with family and friends. Why Milo’s? Milo’s is an award-winning tea. It’s the ideal beverage for the holidays, creating shared Milo’s Moments among family and friends. Milo’s beverages are all natural and contain no preservatives or added acids, are fresh brewed from real tea leaves, and have a clean ingredient list. Milo’s is available in sweetened with pure cane sugar, no calorie sweetened with sucralosee, or unsweet, something for everyone. You can find Milo’s in the refrigerated juice section of your local supermarket. You can use their store locator to find a retailer near you.
Prepare a Holiday Playlist
We are a family that loves our music, so during the holidays, we have a playlist ready to go. This way, we don’t have to stop to search for songs. We can spend more time enjoying our friends and family, with some fun holiday tunes they can enjoy, in the background.
Don’t Forget to Make Memories
In this technology and social media driven age, we can’t forget to have fun and create memories. Holiday gatherings have become a lot of people, who haven’t seen in each other in a while, together in a room either looking at their phones or sharing things they found online. Put the phones away. Don’t forget to catch up with loved ones, make memories that will last until the next time you see them. We have decided this year, we will put a basket by the front door so that everyone can drop their devices inside as they come in. Hopefully that will give us all the opportunity to really enjoy one another, without the screens.
What do you do to lessen the stress during the holidays?













great list! i always love to create a playlist for dinner parties and the holidays. i had never heard of milo’s but my family loves tea so thank you.
Ugh I mostly hate hosting so this was great, thank you! The cleanup is not easy
Something I do to lessen my stress during the holidays is to remind myself that I’m not obligated or expected to give “the best gift ever” to my loved ones. My love language is gift giving/receiving, so when Christmas rolls around, I try to shower people with love via gifts, since that’s my natural way to do so. It has historically led me down some deep rabbit holes in the past, because I obsess over finding the perfect gifts that outdo any gifts I’ve ever given these people before… and that’s just not expected by any of them. They know I love them without the “perfect gift”, so I try to remind myself of that!
I’m suddenly craving tea! LOL The best wedding I ever went to everyone brought a dish. It was so communal. I think pot lucks are the most fun, and so much less stress for the party host!
Holidays can really so stressful and having kids decorate really makes it more fun, too! I also have a love for sweet tea and most of them use so many unnatural preservatives and sweeteners so I need to try Milo’s.
I love the idea of guests bringing a dish each. Really makes the role as host/hostess a little easier and every bit counts!
Great tips. I’m not big on throwing holiday parties because they are so much work but this post has me rethinking it 🙂