How to spend Christmas apart without it hurting
By James Auble · · 3 min read
- long-distance relationships
- holidays
- Christmas
- traditions
Christmas is the day long-distance couples dread, and most advice for it is a list of gifts. A gift helps. But the hard part of the day is the day itself: the morning you wake up and the person you want to tell is a screen away.
You can't fix that, but you can plan around it. Here is what tends to make the day easier.
Decide the shape of the day early
Don't leave it to "we'll talk later." Settle two or three fixed points, with the time zones worked out, and let the rest of the day be loose.
A common split is a short call in the morning for whoever is awake first, then each of you spends the middle of the day with your own family, and you meet again in the evening. If your time zones are far apart, one of you will get the evening while the other is at breakfast. That's fine. Agree on whose day it is for each call, so nobody is guessing.
Open something together
If you're exchanging gifts, open them on the same call, one at a time, instead of ripping through them alone. Watching their face is most of the point. Ship early and check the delivery date, since holiday mail is slow, and especially so across borders. If a package is late, open the tracking page together instead. It makes a decent story later.
Don't make the day about missing each other
It's tempting to spend every call saying how much you wish you were together. You do, and you can say so once. After that, talk about what's actually happening: the food, the relatives, the terrible sweater. A day that's all longing makes the next one harder. A day with some laughter in it gives you something to remember.
Be kind to your own family's day too
You're allowed to be fully present with the people you're with. Put the phone away at dinner. Your partner is probably doing the same, so say so ahead of time and a quiet hour won't be read as distance.
Start something you'll do every year
The best thing you can do is turn this Christmas into the first of a tradition, so next year has something waiting. It can be small: the same song, a letter you write and open together, a photo you take at the same hour each year. If you'd like to write something, what to write in a 140-character vow is a good place to start. Traditions matter more when you live apart, since they're one of the few things you do together while apart.
Plan the next time you'll be in the same room
Put a date on the calendar before the holiday is over. If you can't pick a day, pick the month. A date ahead makes the quiet days after Christmas easier, which is often when it lands hardest. More habits like this are in how to keep the spark alive.
Give each other something that lasts past the day
Wrapping paper is gone by New Year's, so it helps to have one thing that stays.
A lock on EverLoveLocks is engraved with your initials and a date and hangs on a bridge you can both open from your phones. Nothing is shipped, so it can't be late. You can also attach it together: you design it and pay, then your partner gets a private link to look it over, change the engraving, vow, shape or finish, and approve it before it hangs. A Prestige or Eternity lock can also carry a vow of up to 140 characters. You can see the bridge first, or read how it works and what each tier includes.
However you spend the day, make one part of it specific to the two of you.