Finding Joy with Your Partner at Christmastime
8 Tips to Help You Relax and Reconnect with Your Partner this Christmas Season
Photo by Rodolfo Sanches Carvalho on Unsplash
The holidays can be an incredibly fun or stressful (or both) time of the year. Couples feel more strain and distance on their relationship during this time of year because of how many additional parties, gatherings, and family traditions occur. And then there’s the gift giving and the planning and preparing for the gift giving. All of this adds financial stress to the relationship while dramatically impacting the couple’s quality time together during the holidays. If you don’t have a plan to reconnect each week with your partner, you may struggle to find quality time for each other at all.
So how do you find ways to reconnect and relax with your partner during this busy time of year?
8 Tips to Help You Relax and Reconnect with your Partner this Christmas
Schedule a weekly or bi-weekly date and guard that time ferociously.
Ask each other one question each day and explore the depth of each other’s answers. A good resource is my Top 25 Conversation Starter Questions Guide designed to help you build intimacy, connection, and joy with your partner.
Check your mindset - are you focusing on the negativity, overwhelm, and stress of Christmas? Or are you focusing on the joy, gratitude, and love of Christmas? If you’re struggling with a mindset of gratitude for your partner this year, I encourage you to download my 30 Days of Gratitude for Your Partner Guide.
Make a list with your partner of 10 fun things to do together this Christmas season and do at least 5 of them! Some Christmas ideas could be to cut down your own Christmas tree together, make homemade ornaments and decorate the tree with only your homemade ornaments, do a Christmas-themed movie night (including Christmas-themed snacks and drinks), go sledding, skiing, snowshoeing, or cross country skiing together, visit an Ice Castle, drive around your hometown and look at the Christmas lights, see the Nutcracker, or go away for a weekend just the two of you in a unique Airbnb stay.
Create and agree upon one resolution together that is destressing and limits overwhelm. For example, instead of hosting Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner, only host one meal; instead of visiting each set of parents and grandparents, create a schedule for Thanksgiving and Christmas and rotate that schedule; stay home and have your own little Christmas just the two of you instead of driving to your parents, siblings, or grandparents house (whoever is hosting Christmas this year); don’t send out Christmas cards this year if you run out of time (it’s ok, you don’t need to send Christmas cards each year); buy some premade foods or eggnog, not everything has to be homemade.
Ask for help! You don’t have to do everything yourself. Ask your partner for help. And if you’re the partner who doesn’t usually manage the majority of the Christmas tasks, offer your help! A Bad Moms Christmas movie is a movie for a reason - it’s ok to ask for help and it’s ok to break tradition. You do not have to do everything yourself and you don’t have to give up your joy to make the “perfect Christmas” for your kids, partner, or family.
Do something sensual and intimate together. Get a couples massage, have a spa day, give each other massages with a massage candle, try some temperature play in the bedroom, get dressed up and go on a fancy date, take a dance lesson or go dancing, do a couples boudoir photography session, stay at a luxury hotel for a night with strawberries and champagne scheduled for your arrival.
Say “No” to things you don’t want to do or don’t want to prioritize. You don’t need to go to every holiday party, every Christmas gathering, or participate in every family Christmas tradition. You don’t have to go to three different Christmas concerts to support local churches, charities, friends, or children. You don’t have to go to a relative’s Christmas party. And you don’t need to spend money on extravagant gifts for your children if you can’t afford it or don’t want to spend that much money on gifts.
Christmas is not about gift-giving or Santa Claus. It’s about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and honoring His life and sacrifice for our salvation. Out of love, you give your loved ones gifts. But the most important gift you can give them is a knowledge of Christ and your love. Teach them to love God and others, to withhold judgment and hate, and to be grateful and forgiving.
Find the joy in Christmas again by slowing down and spending time with God and your loved ones. Enjoy your time together this holiday season rather than stressing about all the things you “need to do” in order to be a “good partner”. If you’re struggling with stress or overwhelm, please schedule a Discovery Call with me. I’d be happy to discuss how coaching may benefit you!
