Jenn Dean, a parenting, life, health and nutrition coach, says parents should think about the feeling they want to have in their home over the holidays rather than specific memories they want to make with their kids. (elenathewise/Depositphotos.com)

Family coach offers tips for parents aiming to avoid holiday stress

By Roman Hayter Dec 24, 2025 | 6:48 AM

The holidays can be a fun time for kids awaiting presents and getting a break from school, but for many parents Christmas can be a time filled with stress.

For parents, the holidays are often filled with planning, preparing, cooking, travelling and gift wrapping. The result is many parents with a thousand items on their to-do list and not enough time to do them all.

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Jenn Dean, a parenting, life, health and nutrition coach, joined the Greg Morgan Morning Show to discuss holiday stress and share some tips parents can use to keep stress to a minimum.

She said many parents feel like they need to do whatever it takes to make Christmas perfect and magical.

“But the problem is, that it comes at such a cost. It ends up leaving us broke, depleted, stressed out and cranky,” Dean said.

She said there is a simple approach to avoiding stress that many parents are missing.

“When I ask kids what they want most, they don’t say ‘I want a quad. I want a trip to Hawaii.’ They don’t say any of those things. They say ‘I want to play board games with my parents. I want more time with them. I want to hang out with them. I want to build a sport with them,’” Dean explained.

“These things don’t cost money, and we can do it if we make room in our schedule, and we can slow things down,” said Dean.

She said that to avoid that stress, a good step is to think about the feeling you want in your home rather than the memory parents want their kids to have.

“Think about the feeling. Do you want it to be relaxed and peaceful? Do you want it to be fun and boisterous? And then go after that feeling,” Dean said.

“You can get that feeling sitting on the couch in front of a fireplace. You can get that feeling around a kitchen table, playing Monopoly – although I hate Monopoly, you can still do that. You can go out tobogganing. You can get that feeling, and if you go after the feeling, you will win every time,” she said.

Dean said one of her family’s favourite Christmases happened when they were forced to take a much simpler approach to the holiday.

“One year in our home, we all got sick, so there was no Christmas dinner, and there was no stress of running around trying to get everything done,” she said.

“We laid on the couch and we watched cartoons for days, and my kids remember that as being one of the best Christmases ever.”