Do the holidays stress you out? You’re not alone. Sixty-two percent of Baby Boomers, 65 percent of Generation X and 61 percent of Millennials report feeling stress during the holidays, a Healthline survey says. Managing tight finances during the holidays ranks as the biggest contributor to stress, followed by concerns about diet and exercise, worrying about finding the right gift and planning holiday schedules. All these factors can combine to make the holidays feel overwhelming. Fortunately, there are some strategies you can use to make these holiday anxieties more manageable. Here are five tips for taking the stress out of the season so you can relax and enjoy your holidays.

Plan Holiday Spending Into Your Annual Budget

Americans spent an average of $929 on holiday gifts last year, the American Research Group reports. You’ll find the holidays much less stressful financially if you build gift spending into your annual budget and save up during the year. A general rule of budgeting is that you should allocate 50 percent of your monthly income towards necessities and 20 percent toward savings and repaying debt, leaving you 30 percent left for discretionary spending. Use this guideline to figure out how much of your discretionary budget you can afford to allocate towards holiday gift spending.

Use Smart Shopping to Save on Gifts

In order to stay within your holiday budget, Bankrate suggests using smart shopping tactics to save money on gifts:

  • Shopping online at sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial can help you cut down on gift costs.
  • Follow your favorite retailers on social media to get notifications on discounts.
  • Use programs such as Swagbucks to earn online loyalty rewards you can redeem for gift certificates or cards.
  • Shop local thrift stores and craft stores to find bargains or make homemade gifts.

When you can’t afford to spend a lot on gifts, think of ways to make the holidays memorable with special family events that aren’t necessarily expensive. For instance, getting a game for the family to play over the holidays doesn’t need to be costly.

Adopt Effective Dieting Strategies

Stuffing yourself over the holidays and then planning to lose the weight after New Year’s doesn’t usually work. Instead, Good Housekeeping suggests more proactive strategies for avoiding holiday weight gain:

  • Set a realistic weight control plan ahead of time, such as planning to only gain 1 or 2 pounds over the holidays instead of 10.
  • Write down your holiday diet and exercise goals, and find a partner to help motivate you.
  • Eat a little bit before you go to holiday parties instead of arriving hungry so that you’ll be less likely to load up on snacks.
  • Stay away from the snack and buffet tables and save space for the food items you’re most interested in.

Avoiding eating until you’re stuffed by using a scale of 1 to 10 to gauge how full you feel, so that you’re less tempted to eat when you’re not really hungry.

Let Someone Else Help Cook

Preparing holiday meals can be just as stressful as eating them. The biggest key to making holiday cooking less stressful is to ask for help, Today.com says. Here are a few ways you can do that:

  • Delegate food preparation duties by getting family members to help or asking everyone to bring a side dish.
  • Don’t try to make everything from scratch.
  • Consider buying a prepared holiday chicken or roast instead of making it yourself.
  • Order anything you need delivered well in advance, and don’t do your food shopping at the last minute.
  • Prepare anything ahead of time that you can so that you have as little to do as possible on the day of your meal.

Keep Decorations Simple

Decorations are another part of holiday planning that can cause stress. Keeping your decorations simple can help make them less of a hassle:

  • Use a pre-lit Christmas tree to save hours of decorating and cleaning up, reducing the temptation to leave your tree up until spring because it’s too much work to take down.
  • Holiday wall decals are easy to take up and down and can be reused year after year as a family tradition.
  • A simple flower wreath paired with a few decorative candles can transform a room in minutes.
  • Consider alternatives such as smart bulbs instead of traditional lights to save time decorating.