How to survive a single christmas

It might seem as though Christmas is only for couples, but here's why you should count your blessings if you're single.

  Here's to a christmas snogfestThe festive season could be designed to make you feel like you're the only single person on the planet. Everywhere you turn there are images of chocolate-box families and adoring couples having a wonderful time. Schmaltzy love songs are inescapable and supermarket shelves groan under the weight of family-sized everything.

However, if you are single, count your blessings. For a start you don't have to deal with impossible in-laws or the usual shed-load of seasonal compromises. No being bored witless by other people's relatives you barely know. No being driven to distraction by his family's frenzied rug rats.

You can go Christmas shopping when you please rather than having to wait for your partner to get his act together or being coerced into doing his shopping for him. And you don't have to buy presents for them, which means you have more to spend on the people you know and love. You also avoid the potential minefield of selecting the right gift to express your feelings for your boyfriend.

Christmas is terribly expensive and money is the most popular cause of arguments in relationships. What do you care? You only have yourself to answer to.

You can party as long and as hard as you please without having to worry about explaining yourself. You can snog as many blokes as you like or indulge in a spot of recreational sex without getting divorce papers as your present.

Stuff yourself with festive fare
You can sigh and weep at soppy films without having to sit through Rocky III for the fourth time in return. You can stuff yourself with festive fare without anyone else commenting on your waistline.

One of the best things about being single is being free to spend Christmas where you like and with whom you like. You don't have to engage in negotiations over whose family you spend it with. You can choose to be with your own family for some or all of the holiday or avoid them altogether and have Christmas with friends instead.

You can bugger off to the slopes with a group of mates or sip cocktails on a sun lounger on a beach; you may not have the inclination, but the fact is, if you wanted to, you could. In fact, you can do anything you feel like, including absolutely nothing. Christmas can be the ideal time to hibernate and indulge in lots of rest and recuperation.

Being single is all about freedom of choice and you can choose to ignore Christmas altogether. Equally, you can turn your home into tinseltown and make a fantastic fuss over the whole thing.

Make concrete plans
Whatever you choose to do, make concrete plans. Christmas can be lonely if you find yourself alone by default rather than having made a positive choice to be so. And choosing to be alone isn't sad if it's what you really want. It can be the most relaxing way to spend the break. Christmas is an enormous financial, emotional and physical strain for many couples - count yourself lucky that you are not part of one of them this year.

Share this Print this