The must-read cou­ples’ guide to hav­ing a stress free Christ­mas, filled with more hap­pi­ness and less pres­sure by learn­ing how to avoid fam­i­ly fights and oth­er pop­u­lar mishaps that oc­cur around this sea­son.

The hol­i­days are a time for fam­i­ly bond­ing, cel­e­bra­tion and hap­pi­ness. There is noth­ing quite like the mag­ic of Christ­mas on De­cem­ber 25th but let’s be com­plete­ly hon­est, the time lead­ing up to the grand fi­nale can be stress­ful, anx­i­ety filled and fight rid­den if cer­tain key el­e­ments are ig­nored re­la­tion­ship- wise. Avoid the chaos and bick­er­ing with your loved ones by fol­low­ing these three su­per easy tips.

Be­come plan­ner pals

Or­gan­i­sa­tion or should I say good or­gan­i­sa­tion is in­stru­men­tal dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od. Not every­one likes the hus­tle and bus­tle of last-minute Christ­mas shop­ping. How about tonight you sit with your bet­ter half and make a list of all the ac­tiv­i­ties you need to get done, in­clu­sive of gifts for friends and fam­i­ly, work events, fam­i­ly events, and of course, some alone time for you both. By set­ting dates in ad­vance and cre­at­ing a joint cal­en­dar, you can see how much you have to get done and ad­just ac­cord­ing­ly, less­en­ing ten­sion in the house­hold.

Be bud­get bud­dies

It cre­ates an un­easy feel­ing in re­la­tion­ships es­pe­cial­ly new ones when both par­ties are un­sure about how much they should spend or are ex­pect­ed to spend on each oth­er. To lessen this anx­i­ety, sim­ply dis­cuss a set bud­get for the gifts you are get­ting each oth­er. All cou­ples are dif­fer­ent, some even pre­fer shop­ping for gifts to­geth­er and oth­ers just can’t do with that el­e­ment of sur­prise. Fig­ure out your style of gift giv­ing and it will make for a fun stress-free ex­pe­ri­ence. You can even opt for home­made gifts a year or skip the gift giv­ing all to­geth­er and use that mon­ey for a mi­ni va­ca­tion. There are no set rules to these things and the point of Christ­mas is to feel ap­pre­ci­at­ed, thank­ful and loved by those around you. Do not let the ma­te­r­i­al as­pects get the best of you and damp­en your Christ­mas spir­it.

Be­come for­give­ness friends

Peo­ple strive for per­fec­tion es­pe­cial­ly around the hol­i­days. They want the per­fect pic­tures, the per­fect par­ty and even the per­fect part­ner to show off. Re­lax a lit­tle! If he or she spills some­thing or burns the ham or turkey in the oven take a deep breath and find a so­lu­tion. Life is too short to ar­gue and screw up a hol­i­day that you will nev­er get back—Christ­mas 2019! Don’t down your part­ner or be­lit­tle them if things don’t al­ways go to plan. At the end of it, all that mat­ters is that you are spend­ing time to­geth­er and do­ing your best. Re­mem­ber not every­one has that lux­u­ry at hol­i­day time. There are many peo­ple wish­ing they could be in your po­si­tion and wak­ing up next to their sig­nif­i­cant oth­er. There are oth­ers who are fac­ing de­pres­sion be­cause they wish to see fam­i­ly mem­bers that may live far away. Re­flect on your bless­ings and com­plain less this sea­son.

I think San­ta would be pret­ty im­pressed with you this year if you fol­low these tips and well, if he doesn’t show grat­i­tude, I can bet your part­ner will. The key is to nev­er for­get what the hol­i­days are re­al­ly about and keep­ing your pri­or­i­ties in check even if that means be­ing more se­lec­tive with your time and fo­cus­ing less on im­press­ing oth­ers. Christ­mas is a hol­i­day filled with heart, and al­though it can get hec­tic at the end of the day its all worth it. Make this a Christ­mas to re­mem­ber not one you want to for­get be­cause of hol­i­day ar­gu­ments and stress.