The neighborhood houses are beginning to wear multicolored lights like fine jewelry, signaling the coming of the holidaze. Magic is in the air, like glitter in a snow globe, and your inbox is littered with sales ads. While the children are making their Christmas lists, the adults are making their to-do lists.

There’s a lot of pressure around the holidays—to pull off the picture perfect celebration, to dazzle your loved ones with the best gifts, to be kind to your quirky relatives, to look fabulous for the obligatory photos, and to somehow not gain a pound while facing an obstacle course of decadent treats. The holidays also have a way of amplifying every emotion on the spectrum.

If you are prone to getting the holiday blues or feeling overwhelmed by the demands of the season, you are not alone. Here are some brilliant crystal suggestions to keep you rocking around the Christmas tree without losing your mind.

Challenge #1

Gift Shopping—how to find the perfect gifts for your loved ones without stressing out and breaking the bank.

Crystal Solution: Ametrine

Shopping for others is an artform and also a strategic mental puzzle, especially when you are on a budget and have lots of family and friends. Ametrine, a combination of Amethyst and Citrine, is your perfect shopping buddy. Shopping for that hard-to-please relative? Ametrine activates your third eye and intuition, enhancing your mind-reading powers so that you can tap into the perfect gift. It sharpens your mental body and helps you to think clearly, which aids in forming a shopping game plan and making the best decisions. Ametrine combats shopping addiction and your tendency to overspend, guiding you to keep looking until you find the best gift at the best price. A stone of manifestation and creativity, Ametrine opens the flow of abundance and can help you find or attract extra financial resources and discounts. If you are visualizing a unique or hard-to-find gift for someone, Ametrine can help draw it to you. It can also get your creative juices flowing if you want to handmake original DIY gifts. Big bonus—it keeps your emotions calm, your mind centered, and your aura protected when you are cruising those last-minute sales.

Challenge #2

Holiday Overeating—how to not gain ten pounds eating half of the cheese plate, a mountain of sugar cookies, festive pastries, or whatever your weakness is.

Crystal Solution: Lapis Lazuli

Lapis Lazuli will lend you the inner strength and wisdom to back away from the cheese log. It is a beautiful blue stone with inclusions of Pyrite and Calcite, best known to help with spiritual mastery, third eye activation, mental strength and clarity, and accessing higher truth and wisdom. When Lapis Lazuli connects you with your wise inner voice, it is easier to hear what your body really needs and to honor it as a sacred temple. Lapis Lazuli is also a protective stone that seals and repairs your auric field. With a strong energetic boundary in place, it is much easier to not be swayed by the ideas, attitudes, and persuasion techniques of friends and family and to stay true to yourself. The specimens that have a higher content of Pyrite are especially useful for the purpose of being good over the holidays. Pyrite significantly enhances your willpower. It naturally helps you to release bad habits, firmly establish healthy patterns, and stick to your health regimen. It is also known to counteract bad influences in your environment so that you are unaffected by them.  

Challenge #3

Navigating the Relatives—how to be kind, diplomatic, and unaffected by button-pushers in your family.

Crystal Solution: Kunzite

Let’s face it, we all have certain relatives who know just how to ruffle our feathers. If you are anticipating prodding questions, unsolicited advice, a show-off contest, or confrontational political commentary at the family gathering, be prepared and carry Kunzite with you. Kunzite is a high vibration heart stone with a high lithium content. Lithium is a mood-balancer that keeps your emotions calm, stable, and positive—even when your uncle is asking prying questions about your personal life. Kunzite forms a powerful protective shield around you, keeping out negative energy, judgments, psychic attack, energy cords and hooks, entities, and anything else you don’t want to pick up from others. The shielding Kunzite creates is so effective, because it channels Divine love into your auric field and raises your vibration beyond negative influences. It opens your heart and helps you to see others from a higher spiritual perspective, so that you can understand the lessons and reasons behind their behavior. This naturally brings about greater compassion, love, and care, helping you to not take things personally and to respond from your soul level.

Challenge #4

Self Care While Multitasking—how to manage your energy, emotions, and life when your to-do list is a mile long.

Crystal Solution: Kyanite

The holidays are a marathon. There’s always so much to do, especially if you have kids or are hosting a gathering—the planning, the cooking, the cleaning, the decorating, the gift buying and wrapping, the kid’s activities, etc. How do you get it all done and not look and feel like a hot mess? Keep Kyanite with you at all times! Kyanite is a top stone for managing your bio-system and personal energy so that you are operating at optimal levels. Kyanite is versatile and can be used over any chakra or meridian point to clear it. Kyanite also moves the energy centers into proper alignment, as well as the different layers of the auric field. Working with it can ensure that your entire energy system is flowing and functioning properly. It also seals and protects your aura to ensure that you are not leaking energy or allowing in unwanted influences that would drag you down. When you are feeling exhausted or run down, you can work with Kyanite to replenish your energy, increase your stamina, and give you a boost. When you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed, Kyanite can bring you back to a centered, present state. It emits a calming energy that counteracts stress, worry, panic, and frenzy. Kyanite also helps you to connect with the peace, love, and support of the higher dimensional realms when you need some Divine intervention to make it through the day.

You deserve an early present this year, so go ahead and splurge on these crystals to make your holiday all the merrier.

-Adrienne Goff is an author, healer, and teacher with a specialty in the healing crystalline kingdom. Through her courses, Adrienne has taught hundreds of people how to connect with crystals and gems to affect healing, self-discovery, and spiritual advancement. www.adriennegoff.com