Stay healthy and make time for self-care during this busy season

Hi, how do you feel about the holiday season? Do you look forward to it or would you rather skip to the New Year right away?

I've always loved the holiday season, even though, growing up in Austria, the holiday season included some scary Christmas traditions.

One of those scary Austrian traditions was an annual visit by St. Nicholas to our house on the eve of December 5th. As kids, we eagerly waited for him on that day to bring us pre-Christmas gifts. Doesn't sound scary to you, right? But wait.

St. Nick didn't come alone. Oh no. Per Austrian tradition, he brought along a shadowy companion -- the Krampus. Imagine a tall, furry, horned Alpine monster who wields a birch whip in its gigantic claws. His job is to punish or take away children who've misbehaved.

St. Nicholas would proceed to read out loud my and my siblings' good deeds and bad deeds from his all-knowing book of children's behavior (surely provided by my parents). And whenever he read one of my bad deeds (e.g. that I refused to go to bed when mom told me to), it was a sign for the Krampus to threateningly flick his whip at me.

Imagine how afraid my siblings and I were when this scary looking monster came close to us! It must have been a ploy by our parents to frighten us into behaving well.

Aside from the frightening Krampus, most of my holiday memories are nice ones.

One of those is being given an advent calendar filled with yummy chocolates every single year during my childhood. I've kept up that tradition ever since, even now at age 51. After all, can you ever be too old to have an advent calendar filled with delicious treats? I don't think so.

The holiday season is also associated with overindulging and lots of stress. To help you stay on track with your wellness goals, I've created a Healthy Holiday Countdown for you! Think of it as an advent calendar for wellness.

I invite you to download it and cross off each day as you achieve that day's wellness goal and count down to December 25. Sorry, no chocolates included in this advent calendar 🤣.

Click here to download: Healthy Holiday Countdown.pdf

Happy December!

Best,
Christine

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Wellness & Yoga with Christine

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