The night before Christmas Eve, stay awake as long as possible. Set your alarm for an early time like 6 am. When you wake up, you will be very tired and will want to go back to sleep, but resist the urge. When you have to go to sleep later that day, you will fall asleep easier because you are exhausted. If you use your phone as an alarm, change it to a sound you hate so you want to get out of bed. Put your alarm across the room so you must get out of bed to turn it off. When you get out of bed, you will be “awake” for the day. If you have a calendar in your bedroom, turn it back to a different month and pretend it’s that month during the night. Make a playlist of songs you liked listening to at that time to capture the feeling even more.
Tracking Santa, in some cases, actually may do the opposite of what you want to happen. It may make you more excited so it’s harder to sleep. The blue light from your electronic device may keep you awake as well.
Say to yourself: “What am I gonna do tomorrow?” – like it’s any normal day: “Oh, hey, tomorrow maybe I will hang out with my ‘bud’, ______”.
When you’re setting up a cookie plate for Santa is a great time to have some warm milk. Or, drink hot chocolate after you are in your pajamas. This will also help you to relax and stay warm! Don’t drink coffee. The caffeine in it can keep you awake. If warm milk disgusts you on its own, add some honey. It will make for a relaxing treat.
Read a book. It can be about Christmas, although it doesn’t really matter. Try reading a school textbook, a really boring one from your least favorite class. Read a boring book to induce sleepiness; read an exciting one to get lost in and to help take away the urgency of thinking about Christmas things. Some good non-Christmas books are Harry Potter, Twilight, School of Fear, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They are fairly long and can keep you occupied for a while. Burn a sweet-scented candle for a little while in a safe place in your room. The scent will help you to relax, particularly if you choose a scent like lavender or jasmine. Just make sure to extinguish it before you fall asleep! Mind dump your thoughts. If your mind is racing with tomorrow’s exciting events, grab a notepad and write down everything you are excited about and get it out of your system. Dump it all out of your mind and into your notepad. Repeat some relaxing mantras. Mantras have been classified as a form of meditation which involves continually repeating a specific word or phrase while passively tuning out any other type of internal or external distraction. The goal of using mantras is to repeat this word or phrase enough times to elicit a relaxation response.
See some of the related wikiHow links in this article for more ideas on helping you to fall asleep, or visit the whole category on better sleeping. Fluff your pillow. If you fluff your pillow, it will give you something more comfortable for your head to rest on and make it easier to fall asleep.
Make a playlist on your iPod “sleep songs. " Soothing music will definitely help take your mind off Santa, and lull you to sleep.
If you watch TV before bed, try to turn off or down all the other lights, so the room is darkened. That will get your body ready to sleep.
If you know you are going to be videotaped in the morning, prepare your best set of PJ’s. You don’t want everybody to remember you wearing that raggedy old t-shirt and a pair of shorts on Christmas morning, do you? Don’t forget to brush your hair in the morning before galloping downstairs!
