Use Feng Shui in the upcoming Holiday Season

There was a time some decades ago when "holidays" were exactly that, Holy Days. They were a time for gathering together with loved ones and celebrating over good food and drink.

The men did not abandon themselves to the Cyclops to watch 14 back-to-back sporting events (that's Real Male Bonding - a la 2009). Folks would slow down to savor their connections. It appears that those days may be gone forever. Today, most of us are caught in a rush hour style of life that leaves little to no time for anything but seeking the most efficient way to get through these dates without going bonkers.

What to do? Here are tips steeped in Feng Shui teachings:
1 - Decide ahead of time how seriously you want to take each holiday. The more you want the individual holiday to be really meaningful, the more time you'll have to allot to preparation.

2 - Draw out a time line for each date. Knowing how we all try to be as efficient as possible, know also that everything takes more time that we thought it should or would. The result is we get squeezed, and stressed. So think about how much time you want for food shopping, or cooking, or decorating and then make it 1.5x longer. That way, when you're shaving off the ends so you can get just one more thing done, you will actually have time to accomplish the task at hand.

3 - Plan your budget. How much for food? Drink? Gifts? Decorations? Invitations? School events, etc.,etc? If you map these out, you'll start to see you may have forgotten to include some very important aspect in your time line. You will also see what the total is you're planning to spend. If it's more than you can reasonably afford, see where you can trim. This way you hopefully will not be buried under bills post the holidays.

4 - Move the physical trappings of your living space around for each date. Rearranging a room just for a special day will refresh the chi. Moving things also tends to show you where the dust and dirt is, as well as where you dropped that $500 bill you've been missing! (no fooling, one of my clutter students turned up $220 on her first clean up!)

5 - Use the BaGua map and energize the most important areas of your life this holiday season. Want stronger family ties? Try putting holly, a Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush in the appropriate space in your home. When standing at your front door, the family area is in the space in the house on the left center wall.

Do you want to better your career? Add the water element to the center of the front of the home - i.e. snowmen or snowflakes. Improve your health? Try a fresh centerpiece with real earth. Place Poinsettias, a bowl of fruit or a fruit basket in the center of the home or any room therein. So the holiday season is a jolly good time to stir things up, have some fun and invite the Universe to help co-create a better reality for you and yours.