the yogipod guide to christmas

Christmas, the most wonderful time of year….or is it?

A time to get together with those that you love, exchange good will and gifts, or a time to feel overwhelmed, worried and a little out of your depth? Whatever your experience of Christmas I wanted to put together the yogipod guide to Christmas covering as much as possible to make it as merry as possible!

Working towards calm

Christmas doesn’t need to be stressful, in fact it should be the simplest part of the year but often even those of us with the best intentions can get caught up in creating the Christmas of all the perfect adverts on TV. In order to combat this try making a list of those things that are really important for you to do over the Christmas break now before the whirlwind really begins in earnest. Then when it all begins to get a little hectic you can always come back to this memo and remind yourself of what else really matters.

The yogipod gift guide 

We all know Christmas isn’t all about the gifts but they can often be such a cause of pre-Christmas worry that I thought I’d pull some of my favourite independent and small brands together to give you some ideas. I have pledged myself to only shop small and independent this year for my Christmas presents and I’m sure you’ll agree there are so many options below. Most of these brands even have a way to help the environment or those less fortunate intertwined into their very structure, meaning you’ll be giving a gift that keeps on giving.

Yogi Bare – Wild Paws Mat

Owl and the Apothecary – Ritual Kits

Yogipod – Yoga Props

Root and Flower – Coconut and Rose Body Scrub

Nitara London – Yoga bras and leggings

Fernweh UK – Hand knitted beanies

Lyra and Atlas – Macrame for the home

Twisted Root – hand stitched bracelets

Rapanui – charity t-shirts

Free Spirit – yoga t-shirts and tanks with a purpose

Plastic Freedom – the bible for plastic free living

Use the time as time to reflect

Now I’m not the biggest fan of New Years resolutions but I do love spending some time to reflect on the year that has passed and as the leaves begin to fall from the trees and the winter takes hold it’s the perfect time to have a look at your achievements. It doesn’t need to be a full blown activity, just take the time to acknowledge who you are and where you’ve come from.

Try not to fit too much in

Plans are great for getting you out of the house on these cold pre-Christmas dark evenings but we all know that when every night is a social occasion it all begins to get a bit much! Make sure you leave some time for a little bit of chilling too

How eco friendly can you make Christmas?

I’ve already touched on this in the gift guide but it can be such a nice idea to make Christmas as simple and eco friendly as possible. Take the time to choose Christmas cards and wrapping paper that can definitely be recycled and have fun crafting gifts, drinks or foods for the festive period.

Build in some movement

It can be so hard to motivate any sort of movement on the dark evenings or on cold rainy days but I find moving my body in some way always helps regulate that slightly panicked state and gives me the time to think. If you can manage to get a walk in at lunchtime then great or maybe it’s a wiggle on your yoga mat in the evening. You could always give this simple flow a go.

Delegate

Whether it be at work as all those deadlines begin to loom or at home remember to ask for help. Whether family, friends or colleagues let them know what needs doing and watch the jobs disappear

Curl up with a good book

I love nothing more than using the festive period as a way to curl up with a good book, there’s something about those days in between Christmas and New Year which just lend themselves to a day reading.

Some of my favourites to curl up with are –

The Handmaids Tale – Margaret Atwood – a book I have loved since I first read it about ten years. Chilling and haunting but beautiful

Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks – a First World War novel which brings a beautiful insight to the human nature of war and loss

How Yoga Works – Christie McNally – a brilliant introduction to the yoga sutras through the medium of story which is a perfect way to begin to understand the more subtle parts of the yoga practice

Nomad – James Swallow – I am a complete sucker for a thriller or crime novel and this is one of my recent favourites

The Return – Victoria Hislop – a beautiful story of a family told through a couple of narrators and set in modern day and revolution Spain

Eastern Horizons, Hitchhiking the Silk Road – Levison Wood – brilliant diary of travelling across the whole silk route all the way to India

Colour, Travels through the Paintbox – fascinating on so many levels, a complete wander through life guided by colour. So many interesting facts and anecdotes on life, a really difficult one to describe but a must read

Finally remember what it is actually all about

As much as we all want Christmas to be a perfect day in the run up that is all it actually is, a day. It doesn’t matter what it looks like to the outside world, or how it fits in to the pre conceived image, remember your festive season is what you want it to be