Here come the holidays—and with them, holiday stress. Nearly everyone in the U.S. admits to getting stressed out during the holiday season, and while financial concerns are a big part of that, people also blame all the holiday-related chores—like gift shopping, gift wrapping, gift shipping, and getting the house into shape for all those guests. Let’s face it: It’s hard to feel any holiday cheer when the next few weeks are packed solid with endless work.
The solution, if you can manage it, is outsourcing as much as possible. Paying other people to do all those tedious holiday tasks gives you the most precious gift of all: time. Having your holiday parties catered might be the most obvious (and common) way that you can claw back some sanity and free time from the black hole of the holiday season—but there’s a surprisingly long list of holiday chores you can outsource.
Housecleaning
If you don’t already have a cleaning service whipping your home into a semblance of cleanliness, consider hiring one for a short time. Most house-cleaning services will happily set up a one-time appointment, and some (like Merry Maids) have special holiday season packages that include several appointments and focus on getting a house ready for entertaining and guests. Even with day rates for a house cleaner averaging a few hundred bucks, it’s well worth the investment.
Gift wrapping
People hate wrapping gifts. Even if you’re good at it, it’s a boring task that carries the risk of paper cuts and, possibly, insanity. The longer your holiday shopping list is, the more wrapping is involved—so why not hire someone to wrap all those gifts for you? This could be as simple and lo-fi as asking a friend or neighbor who makes gift wrapping look easy to handle your wrapping needs in exchange for a fee or a favor. Otherwise, you can find someone on a service like Taskrabbit, or turn to a professional service like Nifty Package (Wrappily maintains a directory of “Gift Wrapping Artists” you can search through, as well). Most professional gift wrappers offer pickup and delivery as part of the deal.
To wrap a gift you have to first buy a gift—and that includes the mental and emotional energy of coming up with gifts for everyone on your list in the first place. The good news is that you can hire someone to do the shopping for you, and they can even consult on what to get for some or even all of the people on your list. Then they go out, get the goods, and typically handle wrapping and delivery for you as well.
It’s pricey, of course—to the tune of $120-$200 an hour—but if it’s worth it, places like Poppy Gifting will handle the whole gifting business for you.
Lights and decorations
Decorating the house for the holidays is a lot of work and can involve a lot of stress—especially if you’re in a neighborhood where there’s some competition around the tradition. This is a prime opportunity to outsource a chore—you can hire people (or business like Home Depot) to hang your lights, decorate your house, even fetch and deliver a Christmas tree right to your door. Considering that one recent survey found that people spend one full week, on average, getting the decorations up in their house, this could be a lifesaver.
Holiday cards
Holiday cards are a sweet analog tradition from a more genteel age. But writing out holiday cards, stuffing them into envelopes, and then addressing and adding postage to them all is a lot of work. Outsourcing this chore, on the other hand, is super easy. A wide range of companies, including Postable, Snapfish, or even Walgreens offer this service—just design your cards, send them your addresses, and they handle everything else.
Gift/toy assembly
If some of the gifts on your list require assembly and you want them to be ready to go when the box is opened, you can either spend hours of your life trying to get it done on your own, or you can hire someone to do it for you. Companies like LoadUp offer toy assembly services, so folks will come to your house and put all that stuff together for you, or even set up video game consoles so the kids can jump right into multiplayer while the wrapping paper is still floating in the air.
Line waiters
If your shopping list includes a few items that have gone viral and are in short supply, you might be staring at some long waits in long lines, which will complicate your party planning and other holiday activities. Hiring people to wait in line for you has become a whole industry, but if you factor in the value of your own time, it’s well worth the expense—you get the toy/tickets/sneakers your loved one absolutely must have without having to dedicate hours of your life to standing around.
