The FlyLady: Holiday perfectionism sinks the ship

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The holiday season will be upon us before we know it. In a few weeks will be Halloween, then Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. We love to decorate but most of the time we wear ourselves out doing it.

Did you know that you don't have to decorate your home in one single day? It seems that none of us has that kind of time anyway, so why don't we enjoy the process and do a little every day?

One member put up a naked tree for Thanksgiving Day with just the lights on it, and as each guest arrived they were given their choice of ornaments to place on its branches. Then each night after that she made a big deal out of putting on a few more decorations. She would light a candle and carefully pick out the ornament to put on the tree. Then she would turn on the lights and admire it as it blossomed before

their eyes.

Now isn't that much more fun than trying to do it all at once and letting your perfectionism take over and ruin it for everyone? Our mother made Christmas torture for us because of her perfectionism. Every icicle had to be hung just so. This crazy tree she wanted us to help construct left no room for us in the house. We felt like it was this big monster in the living room that was about to devour us. It is probably because when we were making the tree it was her perfectionism that was the hateful part. I know you are trying to figure out what kind of tree this was. It is really hard to explain, but I will try.

Imagine a plain tree without any leaves; not an evergreen tree either: Just branches and no leaves. Then she would cut a one-inch strip of cotton quilt batting for us to wrap around each and every single branch; there could be no bark showing at all. This tree took over our living room. You had to turn sideways to go to the bedrooms. Then she would buy only one color of glass ball ornaments. We had to put them on the tree spaced perfectly. Then there were the icicles. Just thinking about them sends me into spasms. Each icicle had to hang evenly over the branch, and they had to be spaced one inch apart all over this tree. Do you hear the perfectionism? This was just the inside of the house and I'm not even going to talk about all the lights on the outside of the house.

So don't allow your perfectionism to ruin the holidays for everyone in the family, including you! It is not fun to feel guilty for yelling at your babies. Let go of your perfectionism and find yourself FLYing to a different tune this holiday season.

A lot of our bad mouths and fussy attitudes come from feeling pressured by too much to do and not thinking that there is enough time. This is why we have developed a fun way to get ready for the holidays. We pretend that we are going on a three-week cruise that sets sail on