Christmas as a Couple: Cliche or Okay?

By: Alexis Kateridge

Christmas as a couple isn’t always what you expect. (Credit: Flickr.com)

The end of the year is looming even closer and with it, the daunting shadow of Christmas and New Year’s follows.

Christmas and New Year’s is already stressful enough, especially with the added stress of family members constantly asking if you are still dating that nice boy or girl from school and why they aren’t accompanying you to your aunt’s house for Christmas Eve dinner.

As a student living on campus, it is a major treat for me to go home and spend time with my family, and since I attend school with my significant other, I see him all the time. So, spending Christmas as a couple wasn’t really something that either of us felt necessary.

But when the actual day swings around, I always get the inevitable question of, “Where is he?” It kind of makes me feel bad.

Now, ultimately it is my decision to spend Christmas with my family, and something both me and my significant other agreed on a long time ago was that, for now, it would be family before each other. However, I can’t help but wonder every time when my family asks that perhaps, we are making a mistake.

There is a lot of pressure to spend the holidays together, whether it be from friends, family, or even just reading an article on the internet. But it can also be really nice to spend it apart.

First and foremost, family is so extremely important. Spending time with your family is even more important.

Everytime I think about having to tell my mom I won’t be around for Christmas, I see her heartbroken face in my mind and I say, “Nope. Can’t do it.” And when I think about him telling his parents, it elicits the same response.

So, we’re stuck.

Sticking with family, it can be awkward enough to bring your significant other around on a normal day. Imagine having to bring them around when your uncle breaks out his too tight elf pajamas, or when your aunts suddenly start asking prying questions when they get drunk.

Not a good mix, I’m sure you can imagine.

Holidays also bring on this pressure to be overly couple-y, which maybe isn’t your scene. There shouldn’t be pressure to be something you aren’t, and if that means taking half of your equation out, then that is fine.

But every once in a while, you will see your friend post on Instagram about spending the holidays with their significant other and a small part of you will say, “Hey, I want that.” But that is what works for them. Just because they have that doesn’t mean you need or should want that too.

And if you look up on Google, “My boyfriend doesn’t want to spend christmas with me” you will get 85,700,000 hits. Look up, “My girlfriend doesn’t want to spend christmas with me” you get 268,000,000 results.

That’s a lot of people concerned over this issue, and a lot of people weighing in on it as well. Many people even say that not spending the holidays together is a sign of an unhealthy relationship that won’t last.

Yikes.

But despite all of these outside opinions you need to internalize the issue. No one can make this decision except you and your significant other.

It’s important to look inside yourself and ask, “Wait, do I want to spend Christmas with them?” Chances are—you don’t.

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that yes, you should want to spend Christmas with one another because that’s what your family does, that’s what your friends do, heck, that is even what the people in Hallmark movies do.

But maybe, just maybe, that isn’t what you should do.

Take some time away from your significant other to bask in the family atmosphere, it can do wonders for a relationship.