All Is Calmish: How to Feel More Festive and Less Frantic During the Holidays

Psychotherapist Feliciano (This Book Won’t Make You Happy) shares good-humored guidance for making the Christmas season joyful. With four kids under the age of 10, the author and her husband found themselves too consumed with last-minute prep to enjoy Christmas morning; after nearly falling asleep while her kids unwrapped gifts, she committed to figuring out how to appreciate the holiday. According to Feliciano, doing so begins with identifying moments in which one would like to be fully present and working backward to achieve them, including by turning down unnecessary commitments and taking time to meditate. She also suggests reframing the season’s stresses by finding gratitude in so-called obligations (“I should watch holiday movies with the kids” becomes “I get to watch holiday movies with the kids”) and simplifying tradition for sanity’s sake (instead of hiring a professional photographer for Christmas card photos, the author snapped a candid shot of her family in their holiday pajamas). Feliciano’s psychological insights are well balanced by funny, down-to-earth recollections of her own holiday mishaps (she remembers dragging a massive Christmas tree into her home “like a caveman who has just killed a lion and is headed back to the cave”). This’ll go a long way toward helping readers find merriment when things feel anything but festive. (Oct.)