Feeling overwhelmed is not a happiness habit, but many of us start to go into holiday over-drive right about now. Here are two things we can do to increase our happiness and decrease our stress this week:

1) Take the Center for a New American Dream “Simplify the Holidays” challenge. It is jam-packed with ways to de-stress the holidays.

2) Practice gratitude instead of materialism. Check out all the suggestions from readers for how to do this in the comment section of this post. People have come up with some very fun ideas! The photo above is our family’s holiday gratitude garland, inspired by a Raising Happiness reader Margaux O’Malley. (Thank you, Margaux!)

I’m simplifying as a way to participate in the Occupy Movement. That way, I can participate in Occupy without feeling like I’ve taken on a whole new task list. See this post and this one for more about that.

Take One Small Action: The key here is to not become overwhelmed by your attempts to simplify. Maybe just sign the pledge today; tomorrow, implement only one of the Center for a New American Dream’s suggestions for simplifying the holidays. Make changes one day at a time, in small steps.