No, most of us do not plan on stress and that is a big part of the problem. Think about it — there are just some situations that you know will be stressful.

Holidays are stressful. Christmas may mean having certain relatives around and those people may be ones that just drive you insane. Christmas may be the stress of trying to come up with the money to buy presents.

Holidays certainly mean crowds. Driving conditions become more hazardous. People in general become more short tempered and quick to over-react.

If you have a plan in place for how to handle problems that may arise, those stressful problems can be contained or controlled before getting out of hand.

If you can plan your Christmas shopping to be done before Christmas you can avoid the stress of both the crowds in the store and the traffic. If you have a fund set aside for presents you can avoid the stress of over-using your credit cards. If you can do these two things, that obnoxious relative just may not bother you so much.