AN ANTIDOTE FOR HOLIDAY SEASON BURNOUT

NIRO FELICIANO, AUTHOR OF 'ALL IS CALMISH,' GIVES US WAYS TO FEEL LESS FRANTIC AND MORE FESTIVE

- BY DEBORAH NETBURN

Illustrations by MAGGIE CHIANG For The Times

Not long ago, Niro Feliciano found herself sitting down to wrap Christmas presents for her four children at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve, after already having attended a candlelight church service and hosted a dinner for extended family that same night.

It was a frantic end to a hectic holiday season and the moment she realized something had to change.

"I was like, this is just not healthy," said Feliciano, a psychotherapist in Connecticut and a frequent guest on the "Today" show. "And I started to think, 'We need to do this differently.' Not just for me. For my family."

Feliciano loves the winter holidays with all their cozy rituals, but for most of her adult life she struggled to squeeze the cookie baking, holiday parties, Christmas movies and occasional picturesque sleigh rides into her already jam-packed life running a private practice while raising four kids with her surgeon husband.

"We run at an insane pace all the time, so as soon as I started hearing about holidays I used to get stressed. There was no bandwidth, there was no time," she said. "And I kept thinking, 'How am I going to do this?'

In her new book, "All Is Calmish: How to Feel Less Frantic and More Festive During the Holidays," published in October, Feliciano describes how she mindfully shifted her relationship to the holiday season by choosing to slow down, do less and focus on "connection over perfection," as she puts it. In 31 short chapters—one for each day of December—she offers down-to-earth personal stories and advice for people who find themselves overwhelmed by the winter holidays, whether that's because they are trying to do too much, or because they are dealing with soul-crushing issues like grief, loss, loneliness or illness.