Holidays can be difficult.

Hi all~
I personally know that having chronic fatigue makes holidays rough. Do you have any tip and tricks for getting through the holidays and still have some 'gray matter' (brains) left? I will have several people over on Christmas eve and that's the one that gets me. The young ones are so much fun but the noise and occasional whining wears me out. I need to find something for them to do between arrival and package opening after supper. Maybe they should open a gift before supper and others after? And of course, when someone asks what they can bring I'm just plain stupid enough to say, 'Oh, nothing. I've got it covered.' Often hubby has other things he seems to need to do when I could use some cooking and/or household help.

But this year my plan is to cook and maybe freeze anything I can ahead of time. I can get the ham ready and then freeze it. I also fix a pan of lasagna (kid tradition) and that could be frozen also. Pies I do the morning of or day before. Frozen or canned veggies will work. And I can bake the dinner rolls the day before. That's spread out a bit but still looks like a bunch of work. Maybe if I start about now I'll be ready?

I'm lucky to have a doctor who's not afraid to prescribe pain medications if they are warranted. I'll take some ahead of the cooking marathons. It's so much easier than trying to catch up with pain that is out of control. And you'll usually use less medication in the long run.

How do you plan to celebrate any of the holidays that are coming up..... and survive them?
Chutz

ps...you will find this also posted in Chronic Pain and FIbromyalgia.