Plan now for a stress-free, debt-free holiday season

It’s that time of year again. The time of year we start stressing over how we’re going to afford Christmas. Displays are already appearing in many stores. Some of us more organized souls have already begun shopping, or at least making lists of what to buy and how to find the money in an already stretched household budget. With the holidays right around the corner and a weak economy depriving many of us of pay increases in over a decade, we don’t know how we can do it.

This time of year—maybe more than any other—we consider making a budget and sticking to it, or even better, getting completely out of debt. Since that’s what I’ve been thinking about, I figured now was a great time to start a series on managing our money and how to avoid a holiday season strapped with additional debt.

It is possible to survive the holidays without debt and without deprivation. With a little planning and open dialog with our loved ones about what they expect or hope for, we can head off the debt monster before it sinks its teeth into our holiday. Most of us women put unrealistic expectations on ourselves. We have a picture in our heads of the perfect holiday, and when things don't measure up, we feel guilty. We think we let everyone down and we take it out on ourselves. Our solution is to spend more money so that no one could possibly be disappointed.

We believe it's our job to make everything perfect for everyone else. We want the kids to get every gift they ask for. We want the dinner to turn out perfectly, complete with a golden brown turkey, juicy ham, gravy of just the right consistency and color, and the right number of sides and desserts. We want the in-laws to be happy with their guest room accommodations. If the least little thing goes wrong, like the dog throws up on the living room rug, we’re convinced it's our fault, and Christmas is ruined.

Hogwash. The first step in creating a stress-free, debt-free Christmas is to let ourselves off the hook. You’re not responsible for making sure everyone else in the family has a wonderful holiday season. So much of it is outside your control anyway, so stop sweating it.

If everything doesn't go exactly as planned—if we don't have the new designer place settings we hoped to buy last year during the end-of-season-sale, if the linen napkins got lost over the course of the year, if the poinsettias aren’t in full bloom on Christmas Day—it’s not our fault.

For some reason, we gladly heap this stress upon ourselves, and it needs to stop. We are not responsible for fulfilling everyone else's expectation of a perfect holiday. If the turkey gets too dark or the stuffing comes out dry or the pumpkin pies have too much clove, we haven’t ruined Christmas. We haven’t created a nightmare memory from which our children will never recover.

Nobody remembers that stuff anyway. Think back to some of your own Christmas memories. Do you remember the year there were no mandarin oranges in the fruit salad because Mom forgot to buy them? What about the year the souffle fell or when the icing slid off the cake or when the spiral ham fell apart in the oven and filled the kitchen with smoke? Of course not. The memories we carry from year to year are about being with those we love and having a good time together. That's what's important. It should be the only thing that is. If it isn't, well, shame on us and shame on those who put such high expectations upon us.

This year you have my permission not to blame yourself if the turkey is dry or you forget to buy Cool Whip for the pies. Call me and I’ll pick some up on my way over.

In my next post I’ll get deeper into some steps to take to enjoy a debt-free, stress-free holiday season. For now, just realize you are not the Perfect Christmas Creator of the Universe. This is going to be a stress-free holiday season. Starting now, smile, relax, and accept that things will go wrong. Not everything will work out exactly the way you want. The only thing you can control is the way you react. We've already decided this year you’re not going to let those things stress you out.