Better Ways to Spend the Holidays While Single

The challenges of being single during the holidays are real.

During the holidays, you’re probably bombarded with family members asking you why you don’t have a significant other, or if you’re worried about being able to have kids before your “biological clock runs out.” Maybe they ask you the backhanded compliment question: “You’re so good-looking, why don’t you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?!”

Not only do our families bombard us with awkward questions, but almost every Christmas movie (I’m looking at you, Hallmark), seems determined to remind us of our singleness, which we feel even more acutely whenever we try, solo, to do a holiday activity like ice-skating or picking pumpkins. We’re constantly surrounded by couples and families with their children.

It's not easy. I commiserate with you.

This can be disheartening. Trust me, I’ve spent way too much of my life seeing couples and fantasizing about how I can’t wait until the day I can enjoy these activities with my children. I’d even let my imagination go and pretend I WAS there with a husband and children, but, really, I didn’t even know myself well enough at that point to have had a husband and child.

In fact, I would often conform myself to whatever guy I was dating in order to feel like I had someone and even sometimes give up my principles. Don’t do this. Keep working on allowing God to give you a true understanding of yourself so that you don’t compromise.

Around Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we’re also bombarded with couples getting engaged. All over social media, they’re shoving their cute engagement pictures in our faces. I often think: “People make finding someone to spend your entire life with look so easy. I don’t get it. What’s the secret?” If you’re like me, it’s been one of the most difficult, emotionally draining tasks you’ve ever encountered.

I must say that I often wish I had a significant other with me when my family celebrates the holidays.

But, I also know that nothing induces anxiety quite like introducing partners to the ol’ kinship circle. Spending time with and appreciating your family should be a main focus during the holidays, and I’d much rather save that anxiety for that one person who I know will certainly become my family and be with me every holiday for the rest of my life. 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to focus more on what’s in front of me instead of wishing my life away on what I don’t have. Think of the holidays as moreso a time of joyful reflection rather than a season requiring you to beat yourself up emotionally for not having a spouse. There’s enough time for that the rest of the year. 

However, the holiday season is about more than family.

Thanksgiving is, of course, a time to be thankful, and it may be helpful as a single person to remind yourself of this by taking the time to write down one thing you’re thankful for every day, starting the first of November. New Year’s Eve is a great time to celebrate friendships, whether nurturing old friendships, or making goals to develop more friendships or networking opportunities in the coming year. 

What’s the most important holiday to a Christian, though? Christmas. 

During the Christmas season, we remember that Christ became flesh so that we may become like Him and work out our salvation through His grace. Focusing specifically on Christ during the holidays is an excellent way to remind ourselves that having a significant other isn’t the most important goal in life, but, rather, the working out of our salvation and our relationship with God. 

Shouldn’t this always be our main focus, no matter what God chooses to give us? 

A great example of a Saint who often crosses our minds during Christmas, and who constantly strived to become like Christ through his faith and works, is St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra and Lycia, stood up for Christ’s Church and the true teachings of the Christian faith. Other than supposedly slapping a certain heretic in the face (who we’ll leave unnamed), he is best remembered for his great charity toward the poor and disadvantaged.

Perhaps the best example of that generous love we find is in the story of St Nicholas’s rescuing three young sisters from possible lives of prostitution by secretly dropping bags of gold coins through the window of their home at night and so providing each with a wedding dowry. 

How might we, too, put aside the woes of our singleness during the holidays and follow the example of St. Nicholas? Since I’m a children’s rights advocate, I’m going to focus—in the spirit of St. Nicholas—on four ways we can help children this holiday season. 

Human trafficking.

As we’ve just seen, St. Nicholas gave money to three daughters of a poor man in order to save them from what would now be defined—possibly—as human trafficking. We can help stop human trafficking by learning to recognize warning signs that someone may be a victim of trafficking and report this suspicion to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

At a minimum, we can donate to one of the fantastic organizations out there fighting human trafficking, one of which is Operation Underground Railroad. OUR operates in 24 countries and 34 U.S. states, and consists of former CIA, Navy Seals, Special Agents, etc. They coordinate everything from rescue to rehabilitation care such as food and shelter, therapy, and vocational training, to trial and conviction of the perpetrators. They’re awesome!

Helping the needy.

There are families that struggle year-round to provide essentials for their children, so buying toys for Christmas is undoubtedly out of the question. One way to help these families during the holidays is to start a collection drive at your church, place of employment, or even make up bags with your friends that consist of much needed items such as toothbrushes/toothpaste, socks, underwear, etc., and donate them to a nearby charity or homeless shelter.

When it comes to toys for these children, I realize that you most likely don’t have any “old toys” to donate, as we single people don’t have any children who have outgrown them. We can, though, always spend a small amount, even if it’s only $10, to provide something for a child who would otherwise have no presents at all. There’s even a website where we can schedule for nearby charities to come pick up the toys and any other items we’d like to donate!

Foster Care.

Let’s not forget that children in foster care also need clothing and necessities year-round. A few ways to help these children are with monetary donations, donations of clothing, school supplies, and personal hygiene items. Always needed are duffel bags, suitcases, and backpacks, so that children don’t have to carry their few belongings around in garbage bags.

A wonderful organization near me called Foster Love Project has a donation center where foster parents and children can come shop for clothes, toys, and other items (I’ve seen it, it’s huge). Not only that, but they compile transition bags, which are given to foster children upon arrival to foster homes, so that children do not lack basic comforts and foster parents aren’t scrambling to provide basic necessities at the last minute. You can search for foster care organizations near you on the Network for Good website!

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Other organizations that require our year-round support are crisis pregnancy centers. These pregnancy centers help women who are considering abortion or feel that they have no other options to provide for their children but to place them for adoption. While adoption is sometimes necessary, oftentimes mothers really need only monetary or some other easily obtained assistance to provide for their much-wanted children. These centers provide items and necessary resources to help these mothers, fathers, and children.

Helping crisis pregnancy centers can include volunteering as a counselor, even if it’s just one day a week for a few hours, offering administrative support, donating items, helping to organize donated items, and making monetary donations. I guarantee if you contact a center near you, which can be found on Option Line, they will find something for you to do! 

So this holiday season, don't despair your singlehood.

Even if we can only help financially, let us defer our self-pitying thoughts of singleness during the holidays and focus on being a beacon of Christ’s light. We may find that Christ’s grace will soften our overwhelming desires for a spouse and allow us to focus solely on His will—not only during the holidays, but year-round.