Newlywed holidays are tough stuff. On one hand, you should enjoy the holidays you have as a couple before kids. On the other hand, unfortunately, relaxed newlywed holidays are often rife with bickering about how to celebrate.
Avoid an argument by discussing holiday traditions to start your own family unit.
1. Try a creative countdown
Ever heard of an Advent calendar? It’s a Christmas tradition, but you can adopt it even if you aren’t very religious or if you celebrate a different religion. Buy a calendar countdown, and include little notes to each other for each day in December that leads up to Christmas morning. Submit thoughts about what you’re grateful for and what you look forward to in your marriage.
2. Check something off your travel bucket list
Instead of spending thousands to see the in-laws during the holidays, postpone your visit to a different time of the year. Spend your holidays visiting locations that you and your husband want to see before you have kids — and commemorate by adding pictures to your own map of memories.
3. Start a less conventional meal tradition
It’s weird how couples can clash over seemingly insignificant things like food, right? Maybe you love Christmas ham, and your husband is more of a beef man. That’s OK. Come together to create a menu you can both get behind, including favorite dishes from your childhoods. It’s perfectly fine if you make way too much for your party of two. Or make a Turducken.
4. Catch a train or carriage ride, even if it’s cheesy
This is the time of year when local trains are transformed into the North Pole Express. Take your honey for a train ride through your city or countryside for a date night that’s special and snuggly. If you don’t have a train in your town, go ahead and book a horse-drawn carriage for a night of romance.
5. Make the holiday a movie day
Christmas Day is weird when you don’t have kids. You and your hubby sleep in, open your gift (singular) and then stare at each other all morning. Break up the monotony by heading to a movie together. You can even skip making Christmas dinner, and instead eat a glorious hot dog and popcorn.
6. Expand your family unit
With a puppy or kitten, that is. If you don’t yet have an animal in your brood, and you’re ready to expand your family (but not in the pregnancy way), find a lovable little guy at your local animal shelter. An animal expands the love in your family, and also reminds you and your husband that your family is decidedly your own and not your parents’ or in-laws’. In the coming years, make it a routine to volunteer at an animal shelter for your winter holiday.
7. Create an eve of romance
Christmas Eve can be the sweetest day of the year, as long as you carve out time for your husband in the midst of festivities. Turn Christmas Eve into a date night, complete with candlelit dinner, hot cocoa and a favorite movie. Open one special present over dinner to start Christmas morning a little early.
8. Volunteer together
During the holiday season, we turn our collective minds toward giving back. Make a point of volunteering at a soup kitchen or nursing home with your husband. It serves as a great reminder that the world is bigger than your new and exciting marriage, and it allows you to fall in love with his different characteristics.
What holiday traditions do you hope to start with your loving husband this year?
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