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The 12 Tips of Christmas

·3 mins

This is a series of 12 tips to help you get the most out of the Christmas holiday season, whatever your religious beliefs.

These tips are based on NLP and other techniques and are aimed at how you feel about the holiday and everything that goes on around it. You won’t find any help in cooking a turkey or how to dress for a party. However, you may find some help about reducing your levels of stress and increasing your levels of enjoyment.

Tip 1. Finding The Christmas Spirit

Love it or hate it Christmas isn’t going to go away. So you may as well make the best of it. In this tip you can explore your ‘Christmas Spirit’. How would the perfect Christmas be for you? How would you like to feel? What would you like it to mean?

How would you like my Christmas to be?

  • Do I want a wild rush of parties with friends?
  • A warm family Christmas with your loved ones?
  • A peaceful time with a special person?
  • Just time to be by yourself and get away from it all?
  • Or something else entirely?

After you have decided how you would like it to be ask yourself these questions:

If my Christmas was perfect, exactly the way I want it to be. What would that do for me? How would that make me feel?

Take whatever answer comes to mind and ask yourself:

If I fully realised that reason or felt that feeling. What would that do for me? How would that make me feel?

Take the answers to that question and ask yourself again:

If I fully realised that reason or felt that feeling. What would that do for me? How would that make me feel?

Repeat feeding in the previous answer to the question into “What would that do for me?” and “How would that make me feel?”

At some point the answers will take on a very meaningful quality for you. Something important and special. Your reason for Christmas. Your “Christmas spirit”.

Just enjoy that feeling as you think about Christmas. Imagine how Christmas would feel if it was surfused with that feeling.

Here’s a hypothetical example for a mother with young kids:

My perfect Christmas is a warm family occasion.

What would that do you for you? How would that make you feel?

I’d feel surrounded by the people I loved.

And what would that do for you? How would that make you feel?

I’d feel warm, loving and loved by my family.

And what would that do for you? How would that make you feel?

I’d feel a deep loving belonging.

In this example for this mother ‘deep loving belonging’ would be her ‘Spirit of Christmas’. What would her Christmas be like if it was permeated by that feeling?