Another year, another holiday season when everyone's stressed. AF. But you don't have to be. The lifestyle experts on NIPYATA!'s Wellness Team have devised a program to get you through this holiday season stress free. Follow these five simple rules and you'll reach 2017 in peak physical and mental condition:
1. Get online. Skip the mall. Skip the crowds. Skip traffic. Point and click, point and click, point and click...BOOM, done! Gifts for everyone! And you haven't even had your coffee yet. Now you have the rest of the day to get back online and watch porn...which is what you wanted to do anyway.
2. Wear ugly sweaters. Not just to an Ugly Sweater Party, but every day. Wear them to work, brunch, church, parent-teacher conferences, funerals, everywhere. When you wore one to that party years ago, everyone knew you were the fun guy, but now people are seeing you in them every day and starting to think you have something wrong with you. Which is great. They'll start to give you a little more leeway in every day life...which is exactly what you need at this time of year.
3. Drink. A lot. I once met someone whose routine was to have six beers by the time he got to work (one when he woke up, one in the shower, two at breakfast, and two on the bus). I remember saying to myself, "this guy has it all figured out," but then I watched him get ejected from the bar; thrown out the front door and into the night. I've never seen someone look so calm and collected while being manhandled by a team of burly bouncers. I didn't realize it at the time, but he would become my role model for the next ten years. You'll definitely need a good helping of booze on the daily if you expect to take the lumps this holiday season will give you. At the very least, you'll be able to wake up on Jan. 1 asking, "what happened?" which isn't a bad alternative.
4. Trim your shopping list. You have your A-list (these people definitely get gifts), your B-list (these people get gifts if they give you something first), and your Shit-list (literally, the people whose homes you go to to drop off a flaming bag of shit at their front door). First, forget your Shit-list...it's way too time consuming to find poop, bag it, then drive it around delivering it to everyone. No one's got time for that during the holidays. Next, and as much as it hurts, you gotta get rid of the B-list too...these are fringe people in your life and you won't miss not having to shop for them. Plus, when they show up at your house and notice you reeking of booze, drenched in sweat and wearing an ugly Christmas sweater for no reason, they'll understand. Now it gets tricky...you gotta trim the A-list to a manageable amount of truly special people in your life. If you think long and hard enough, you should be able to get this down to one, two people, tops. If even that seems like too much, skip them this go around...there's always next year.
5. Stop doing what you do. We all know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You do the exact same thing every day, and you're at your wit's end. Your work life balance sucks. You need some "ME time." Bang in sick next week so you can get caught up with all the things you've been neglecting all year. As an added bonus, when you show up back at work with a newfound sense of purpose, your boss will appreciate your new outlook and give you some freedom to pursue new projects because you're the responsible and take charge kind of person she was looking for.
So, there you have it, and as the interwebs say, "Five Weird Tricks" to get you through this most festive and overwhelming of months. Stick to the plan and these holidays may very well be your happiest yet!
