I’m about to reveal one of the biggest secrets around.

Are you ready?

Everybody doesn’t look forward to the holidays with glee.

It’s true.

Are you one who secretly dreads the nonstop music piped through the mall, the extra demand on your time spent shopping and cooking, the social expectations, the strain on your budget, and the clashing of personalities and unresolved hurts called “family holiday dinner?” If you are without a mate or any remaining relatives, the holidays may even promise loneliness.

I’m reminded of one Thanksgiving many years ago.

It was after dinner and I quietly observed my family hurling talk at each other as I carried the dirty dishes from the dining room to the kitchen.

My 82-year-old mother had finished her dessert and was ready to go home. She wasn’t interested in playing games, having friendly conversation nor watching a holiday movie on TV. She couldn’t be consoled.

My niece, who had brought my mother to my house for the dinner, was letting my mother and every else in earshot know that she was not leaving until she was ready to leave.

While this clash of wills was going on, my 10 year old grandson was chasing his 9 year old brother through the house squealing, barely missing a collision with my teapot collection.

My mother paused her appeals to my niece to turn on my daughter, their mom, “Why don’t you control your children!”

In the meantime, my sister had gone out on the patio to have a cigarette, but was standing right on the other side of the screendoor. Her smoke was wafting into the house, triggering complaints from the unwilling recipients of her secondary smoke.

As I watched these encounters and longing for one of those Disney holiday scenes, I thought to myself, “Why can’t we have a normal Thanksgiving?”

Then I realized, sadly, that this was our “normal” Thanksgiving.

If you’ve been trying unsuccesssfully for years to create the holidays you’ve seen in movies, you know what I mean.

Those movie holiday celebrations are fictional.

Your life is real.

Even trying to recreate your childhood Christmases is fraught with problems since your family goals and lifestyle are probably very different from what they were when you were growing up.

Setting out to create a fictional holiday only sets you up for disappointment.

But all is not lost.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could look forward to the holidays with joy, knowing that it was going to be exactly the wonderful occasion you wanted it to be?

My friend and colleague, Monick Halm, and I have learned over the years a terrific set of tips and strategies that will help you do just that.

They’re part of our December 7th teleclass on “How to Make Your Holiday Merry, not Scary: Stress-reducing, Sanity-saving Tips that Work Year-Round.”

You’ll be familiar with some of the tips on our list, but some of them will be new to you. (Sorry, not one of them recommends decking relatives instead of halls.)

And by the time we’re done, you’ll have a checklist of tips that have worked for us and many others. And best of all you
will now be able to enjoy your holidays in ways you never thought were possible.

Register at https://coloryourlifehappy.com/holiday
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P.S. If you can’t attend on December 7th at 5:30 PM PST, go ahead and register anyway because we’ll send you the link to the replay.