Finding God’s Peace During a Stressful Christmas Season

Let me know if this sounds familiar—you visit five different craft stores looking for the perfect material for your Christmas wreath. You open five different browsers to search ten different websites to find that perfect Christmas gift. You’re feeling overwhelmed, and, in a moment of stress, you whisper in the back of your mind: I wish Christmas was over. 

If that’s you, I’ve been there. While I love celebrating Jesus during Christmas time, it can also be one of the most stressful times of the year. Below, I’ll share four tips on how to find God’s peace during a stressful Christmas Season. These tips include renewing your focus on God, praying over your plans, prioritizing what’s eternal, and letting go of perfection. 

If you would like to know more about these tips on finding God’s peace during a stressful Christmas season, please keep reading!

Renew Your Focus on God

December is such a busy time of year because of all the planning that goes into getting ready for Christmas. From meal planning to last minute gift shopping, there’s so much that’s competing for our attention. This busyness makes it easy for us to forget to spend time with God. Having a regular quiet time with God can help us to be aware of God’s presence and find His peace in our everyday lives. 

I personally find that my faith begins to feel stretched thin when I’m not spending daily time in God’s presence. One of the ways that I remind myself to spend time with God in December is by challenging myself to read an entire gospel by Christmas morning. Reading one of the gospels helps me to remember that Christmas is about Jesus, His earthly ministry, and the salvation He purchased for me.

If you’re struggling with finding God’s peace during a stressful Christmas season, you could also try reading a gospel through the month of December. Another suggestion would be to spend time memorizing scriptures that will remind you of Jesus and why we truly celebrate Christmas. Lastly, you could also choose to listen to Christ inspired Christmas music. This can be especially helpful when you’re out running errands. Listening to Christ inspired Christmas music will remind you of Jesus and may help to cultivate gratitude for the Christmas season.

Pray Over Your Plans to Find God’s Peace During a Stressful Christmas Season

When we get overwhelmed, we can often forget to include God in our plans. This is unfortunate, however, because God is exactly who we need to turn to when life becomes stressful. Prayer can help us to turn over a situation to God and ask for His intervention. 1 Peter 3:12 states, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer.” God cares about what happens to us, and He desires to speak into any situation we bring to Him.

This is a truth that I’ve experience myself while traveling to visit family for Christmas several years ago. I was a bit stressed and mistakenly arrived too late for my flight. The customer service representative put me on standby and asked me to come back tomorrow to try to get another flight. Unfortunately, there weren’t anymore flights available that same day. I realized that there was a possibility that I might not make it home for Christmas. I prayed and submitted the situation to God, and He answered my prayer. The next morning, I was able to get on an early flight. The rest of my trip went smoothly. 

If you’re struggling with finding God’s peace during a stressful Christmas season, try prayer. Prayer is one of the most powerful things we can do as believers when we feel overwhelmed. Whether the circumstance is big or small, we can pray and invite God’s wisdom, provision, and grace into it.

Prioritize What’s Eternal

The simple truth is that we can’t do everything. Instead, we have to focus on what’s truly important. During the holidays, we can prioritize worshipping God, spending time with our family, being a blessing to others, and sharing the story of Jesus. These are the things that will have a long lasting impact. 

When I think about this truth, I think about the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. Jesus was visiting, and Martha was busy making preparations while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. When Martha asked for Mary’s help, Jesus stated that “Mary has chosen what was better (v.42).” While I’m sure Martha’s intentions were to honor Jesus, the end result was that she was missing an opportunity to sit at His feet. Think about it this way—Martha was one of the few people in human history to see Jesus alive in human form. Yet, she was so distracted that she lost precious time with Him. When you think about it this way, spending time with Jesus was more important than the preparations.

In some cases, finding peace during a stressful Christmas season will mean learning to prioritize what’s important and what’s not. We’ll need to ask ourselves if what we’re doing will have an eternal impact. If you struggle with this, invite the Holy Spirit into this process. Ask Him to show you how you can prioritize what matters and stop stressing about the unnecessary preparations.

Let Go of Perfection to Find God’s Peace During a Stressful Christmas Season

Part of finding God’s peace during a stressful Christmas season is learning to let go of the things that ultimately will not matter. This can be harder than it sounds because many of us are perfectionists. We have a grand vision of Christmas in our heads that we want to share with our family and friends. However, this vision may be keeping us from enjoying the Christmas season and focusing on what really matters.

A couple years ago, I was looking for tartan ribbon in a craft store. I wanted to decorate my Christmas gifts using the ribbon. When I couldn’t find it, I thought about going to another store. Before I could leave the aisle, a woman approached me and asked if I noticed any ribbon that was a “grinch” green color. I told her no. She mentioned that she had already been to two other craft stores looking for that color. 

As she shared her experience, I started to question if I really needed that tartan ribbon. I realized that it wasn’t worth the hassle of traveling to different stores just to get it. The wrapping would be torn apart on Christmas morning and the time I spent looking for the ribbon could be used to enjoy my family or finalize other preparations.

While preparing for the holidays, we may need to discard our vision for a perfect Christmas and accept that not everything will be as we’ve planned. Years from now, our family and friends will probably not remember all of these small details anyway. What they will remember is the love they felt or the time we spent with them.

In Conclusion

These are my tips for finding God’s peace during a stressful Christmas season. How do you handle stress during the holidays? Share your tips below. Need more encouragement this holiday season? Check out these blogposts!