The holidays are a time for you to be spending time with family, friends and loved ones. For a lot of us, this includes boyfriends and girlfriends: long-term, short-term, no matter the label that’s on it, I can guarantee that you’ll want to spend at least some time with them depending on the distance.
Of course, I’m writing this article because I have personal experience with this…what would you call it? Inconvenience, issue, hardship, etc.? The point is that this is a hard topic to navigate in a relationship, especially with a more tight-knit family unit. I have been in two serious, long-term relationships that included us trying to navigate the holidays so that we could both see our families and still see each other.
Each situation is different. Some holidays also might be easier to spend together because of how long you have off from school, how far apart you live from each other, or even how seriously your families celebrate the specific holiday at hand. For example, my family is patriotic, but we never have plans for the Fourth of July. However, my boyfriend’s family goes NUTS for the Fourth. Therefore, we spend that holiday with his family rather than mine.
For the more serious holidays that get celebrated like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, this is a lot harder to navigate. Most people are down to negotiate Thanksgiving and Easter but are never willing to give up Christmas. Once again, there are a lot of different factors that go into splitting the holidays with your significant other, so results will vary based on your specific circumstances. For instance, if your parents are divorced, their parents are divorced, or both of your parents are divorced, your life is going to be harder around the holidays. If you’re not as close to your family or vice versa, your life is going to be a lot easier because one of you will be more willing to split the holiday. If you live closer rather than further from each other or each other’s families, your life will be a lot easier! If you’re long distance when you get home like me and my boyfriend, your life just becomes even harder. There are so many factors that go into this topic; some that are generic like the few that I described, and some that are just so complicated or unique that there’s no way I could advise without knowing every detail. If you have concerns or want an outside perspective about how to go about your situation, feel free to ask questions!
Now, I’m going to tell you my personal experiences with splitting holidays in two very different relationships.
I met my ex in high school so obviously we lived close enough that distance wasn’t a huge issue for holidays. However, my parents are divorced and his family was extremely family-oriented and did everything together. So, this still made it difficult for us to equally split up holidays. Thankfully, my family was more serious about Thanksgiving, and his was more serious about Easter so on Thanksgiving we went to my family’s celebration, and on Easter, we went to his. However, my situation with my parents being divorced was also more figured out than most other divorced families. Growing up, if we had Easter at my mom’s side, that meant we had Thanksgiving at my dad’s side and then we switched every year so that it was equal. Christmas Eve was always at my dad’s side and Christmas Day was at my mom’s side. Now, you’re probably wondering how my ex and I navigated the Christmas holiday since my family took both days. Fortunately for me at the time, I didn’t have to give up seeing either side of my family, I just had to settle for cutting the time at my dad’s side a little short. My ex’s family celebrated Christmas at midnight between the eve and the day, so Christmas was just a really long two days for me for the three years we were in a relationship! It was absolutely exhausting since my dad’s side is from Northern Virginia, my mom’s side lives in Maryland, and my ex’s family lives in a different part of Maryland, but we still made it work so that we could spend the holiday together.
However, in my current relationship, I didn’t get nearly as lucky with how our families like to celebrate holidays. My current boyfriend and I have been dating for two years, and this is the first year that we have decided to spend the holidays together. His family is also very family-oriented and, since I am his first serious girlfriend, this will be his first experience having to navigate the holidays while in a relationship. Like mine, his parents are also divorced, which makes it just that much harder for us to try to split everything up fairly.
Fortunately, we’ve already had a serious discussion about how we’re going to handle this, but it’s not always as easy as that. This year we decided that we would have Thanksgiving with my family and the upcoming Easter holiday will be with his family; then it’ll switch each time (I took a page out of my parents’ book with that one)! But as always, the Christmas holiday is a lot harder. Especially because my boyfriend and his family are located in Northern Virginia, and the majority of my family is located in Maryland. This is also the first year that he will have to attend two Christmas celebrations for his family, and on top of that, try to attend mine as well. Therefore, we are the real-life version of the movie Four Christmases. The current plan is that we will see his dad’s side of the family and my dad’s side of the family on Christmas Eve since it will be around the same area. For Christmas Day, we will be in Maryland with my mom’s side of the family for the first half of the day, and then we will be traveling back to Northern Virginia for his mom’s side of the family. A LOT of driving in just two days, but you make it work when you love each other!
Now that I’ve made it clear just how much experience I have in this topic, I would love to get into how to approach this subject with your significant other, and maybe how to navigate it with your family or theirs. Like I said before, my current boyfriend is very close to his family. It was really hard to approach this subject with him at first because he has never spent a holiday away from his family, and he felt that I was trying to take him away from his family during the holidays. If you’re worried about this happening with your significant other, try doing what I did: reminding them that you love them, you see a future with them, and that you want to spend the holidays with the person that you love. You’re definitely not trying to take them away from their family, you just want to spend time with them during that special day! However, if you’re not getting backlash from your significant other, but you are from their family, that is a whole other conversation you need to have with your person. If you are both consenting adults wanting to spend time together during the holidays, then there should be no issue and your partner needs to have a private conversation with their family (it’s not about you girl, don’t worry!).
So, let’s break it down. If you and your partner are wanting to see each other during the holidays, you should…
- Have a conversation about if both of you want to see each other
2a. Come up with a plan that not only makes the two of you happy but will stress/upset both of your families as little as possible (to avoid conflict!)
2b. If it’s super complicated, work out an agreement that’s fair (like my boyfriend and I did with Thanksgiving and Easter)
3. Break the news to your families and maybe bring a sweet treat to soften the blow
4. And finally, enjoy your holiday(s) with your partners and all of your loved ones
GOOD LUCK!