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They’re coming. The holidays.

That means you’ll have lots of time to write your novel, or pump out a stream of amazing articles, or finish submitting your proposal to that long list of agents. (What do you mean, “Yeah right”?)

Okay, so there are a few other little things you still need to do. Like buy presents, do some baking, invite the relatives over for brunch… Maybe you’ll be busier than you think. Maybe you’re only getting a few days off work. Maybe you’re not getting any.

If you blog, the holiday season poses an interesting dilemma. How can you maintain your sanity while still providing your readers with quality content?

Here are 9 suggestions to help you beat holiday blogging burnout:

1. Reduce the number of posts you write for a week before and after Christmas. People will be spending less time catching up on blogs during peak holiday times, so you can safely pare down your usual regime.
2. Write shorter posts. Make them punchy and highly relevant, but not necessarily as long as you would normally write. They’ll take less time without compromising on quality.
3. Queue up articles ahead of time so they post automatically. Use the timestamp feature in WordPress to schedule your posts for the exact date and time you want them to be published. This is a great idea if you’re going to be travelling during the holidays.
4. Use the holidays to your advantage. Just as I’ve used them as a springboard for this post, you can do the same.  No matter what you blog about, you can offer your readers useful holiday-related tips.
5. Do a year-end round up of the best links and resources. Instead of writing an article yourself, make your task easier and promote others’ work by linking to the most useful content you’ve discovered this year.
6. Rework some of your past articles. You can provide a list of your own best posts for the year, rehash an old article, or revisit a controversial topic you’ve covered in the past and attack it from a different angle.
7. Make your readers work for you. Ask for reader participation by inviting thoughts on a current topic or asking for tips they find useful. Of course, this works best if your blog has a large, communicative audience.
8. Use guest posts. If you have connections to other bloggers or professionals who are interested in writing for your site, solicit articles from them to use during the holidays. You’ll still need to edit and schedule the posts, but it’s less work than writing them yourself.
9. On occasion, post something that’s just-for-fun. A joke. A comic strip. A holiday riddle. A picture of your Uncle Morris eating turkey. Whatever you use, it should be linked in some way to your key topics, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be useful.

With just over a week until the big day, I hope you find this list helpful to planning your holiday season.

What other tips do you have to share on how to beat blogging burnout?