It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I love the holidays, but I find it hard to set boundaries this time of year, can you relate?

When I got married 3 years ago, my husband I’s family more than doubled when we merged lives. We both come from blended families, so our time during the holidays was split exponentially. Our first Christmas as a married couple was incredibly stressful. We were working, trying to juggle 4+ Christmases and it was too much!
We realized real quick, that we couldn’t spend the holidays like this again and we were going to have to make some really big changes. We had to create our own traditions on how WE spent the holidays, we were going to have to establish boundaries. That year I decided to take notes. I wrote down the things we did together that we enjoyed and I wrote down the boundaries we wanted to set the for the following year. I knew if we didn’t write this down, we would forget and we would spend another holiday miserable.

The holidays are a great time to spend with family and friends, but lines start to blur easily this time of year. I’m going to give you the permission, I wish I had given myself years ago, you don’t have to go to every Christmas party, you don’t have to go to every person in your family trees house to celebrate the holidays, you do not have to buy Christmas gifts for people you don’t want to buy gifts for. We don’t have to do these things. It’s not always easy to make the mind-shift, but once you do you will reclaim your holidays!

I created a printable version of the notes I take each year, to make it easier for you to set your own holiday priorities. Receive this free printable below: