Katy Lifestyles and Homes magazine Dec 2009: Laugh Your Way Through Holiday Stress

By Faye Hughes

Ah, the holidays. If you’re like most people, you’re probably struggling to keep your head above the eggnog this time of year, and who can blame you? There are parties to organize and attend, presents to purchase and wrap, and let ’s not forget all of the holiday decorations to drag out of storage or the greeting cards to address and mail. The stress of trying to do it all —and do it as flawlessly as Martha Stewart—can make the holidays more of a nightmare than a joyous celebration.

What’s a person to do?

Well, according to the experts, the answer is to laugh . . . and the longer and louder, the better.

For years, laughter has been hailed as the best medicine for whatever ails you. When combating stress, laughing can literally be a life-saver.

Motivational humorist and Director of Fun for Humor Advantage, Inc. Yvonne Conte believes that laughing during stressful situations gives us time to breathe and regroup, which is often all that is needed to defuse an emotional explosion before it erupts.

“Laughing is important during the holidays because if you are laughing with people you are generally not killing them, and as we all know we often want to strangle some of our relatives at times, ” says Conte.

Good advice.

Katy Lifestyles and Homes’ contributing editor Christie Craig also knows a lot about the value of humor in combating stress, “In my world, killing people is optional,” Craig teases.

Yes, but the world she’s referring to is fiction.

Craig is making quite a name for herself as an award-winning novelist of humorous romance suspense. Lucky for all of us, her latest offering from Dorchester LoveSpell, Divorced, Desperate and Deceived, arrived on Nov. 24, just in time to help us battle holiday stress.

Lauded by Publisher’s Weekly for balancing romance and humor with suspense, Divorced, Desperate and Deceived follows the romantic adventure of florist Kathy Callahan and plumber-with-a-secret Stan Bradley, aka DEA agent Luke Hunter as they run for their lives from a murderous drug kingpin. Don ’t let the serious-sounding plotline fool you—there are laughs a’plenty in Craig’s novel, which caps off her hilarious Divorced and Desperate trilogy for Dorchester. So, if you need another helping of laughter during the holidays, there ’s plenty of servings to be had. Divorced, Desperate and Delicious and Divorced, Desperate and Dating are the other two novels in this trilogy. All of Craig’s books can be found on her Web site: www.Christie-Craig.com.

When asked how she deals with the stress of the holidays, Craig states, “I try to include a giggle-filled lunch out with some old friends, and I also try to make time to watch a laugh-out-loud holiday-themed movie, such as A Christmas Story or Home for the Holidays. And of course, I also have my favorite romantic comedy books on hand to lose myself in when the holiday craziness becomes too much. But mostly, I try to remember to keep my humor glasses on and see the funny side of every situation. ”

Craig’s philosophy can work for all us—instead of letting holiday stress get the best of us, we should try to find the inherent humor in the situation and laugh. And if that fails, remember that spending a few hours with a feel-good and laugh-till-it-hurts book written by Christie Craig is a great way to de-stress and give your funny bone a good workout in the process.

So, Merry Christmas and may your holidays be filled with good cheer, good friends, lots of laughter, and a great book!