Tips for Surviving the Holidays as a Single Woman

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Single Bells Surviving the Holidays as a Single Child-Free Woman

The plans the perks and the pains

Getty Images Aunt Bess, is there rum in the eggnog? Life as a single, child-free woman can be rather glorious. You are the architect of your day, and you can stay out as late as you like. You return to a home that is exactly as you left it, and can sleep spread-eagle in your bed for as many hours as you want. You snooze well, knowing that the money you would have spent on braces and college tuition is perking away in a retirement fund, and that there will be no one there to judge you when you wake to find a stray chunk of night cheese stuck to your pillow. Your life feels casually glamorous and grand. But as the days grow shorter, many of us blissfully untethered ladies feel ... complex ... as we approach what can feel like the longest days of all — the holidays. We spoke with a few fabulously independent women about internal and external holiday pressures — and whether this is indeed the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year”?

The perks

Some of us chose not to procreate. Instead, we direct our resources toward people already on the planet. The holidays offer wonderful opportunities to do just that. We spoil beloved nieces and nephews, enjoy the daylights out of them, then go back to our quiet homes. We are also freed up to reach out to people in need. “My cousin’s sister-in-law suddenly lost both her husband and her daughter, and is raising a little boy by herself,” says Lori, 60, a happily-never-married theater director. “I’ll get him gifts, and we’ll do Passover Seder together. I like that I can be there for them, in a way that I couldn’t be if I had my own kids.” “It’s cheaper!” crows Kellie, a 54-year-old actress who has been separated for two years. “I used to have to pay for plane tickets, buy gifts for all the in-laws — and now I don’t!”
A healthier bank balance isn’t the only holiday perk for the single and child-free. Some delight in shopping and wrapping. For many of us, seeing the soggy piles of paper on Boxing Day curbs, and knowing that we’ll never have to deal with it can make the season bright. And when one is tied to neither spouses nor children, it’s a lot easier to opt out of the entire exhausting enterprise. Christmas Day on the beach in Mexico? Why not. “When I go to family holiday gatherings, I feel like I’m in a Roman arena “ — Raquel, 49

The pains

“When I go to family holiday gatherings, I feel like I’m in a Roman arena,” says Raquel, 49, a long-divorced librarian. “It’s always, ‘Are you dating?’ Then, they go through the list of people we know — this person got married, this person had a kid, this person had a grandkid. There’s a lot of shame that goes along with being a single woman, especially without kids, and the heat turns up at the holidays. I call it ‘throwing meat to the lions.’ ” “My judgmental cousins — who used to try to set me up with people — host the family holiday gatherings, and I just don’t want to defend my life choices to them anymore,” adds Lori. “They must think I am getting very sickly, because I seem to get a cold every Thanksgiving or Christmas that prevents me from traveling to be with them!” Internal melancholy also bubbles up, and not just from the four-thousandth showing of It’s a Wonderful Life. “There aren’t any kids around to play Santa for, and I do think that would be fun,” Kellie muses.

The plans

So, what’s a casually glamorous, grand women do with herself over the holidays? Turns out that it’s the same thing she does with herself the rest of the year — whatever she wants. “I go to friends’ houses for the holidays,” Raquel says. “It’s more fun. I don’t feel pressured to defend myself. And the food is better!” “I like to celebrate with ‘my tribe,’ ” Kellie says. “We call it ‘orphan holidays.’ We’re mostly single without kids, and there’s no judgment or shame." “We’re Jewish, and as kids, my sister and I would go to the store on Christmas and get a jigsaw puzzle and put it together,” Lori says. “Then, one year in our 30s, she was having a really hard time, and a friend suggested that I get a jigsaw puzzle on Christmas Day and take it over to her, and now that’s our tradition. It’s fun!” The holidays offer time for reflection. For single women with no kids (by choice), having their life choices called into question is trying, but also illuminating. Creating a life outside society’s script demands thought, creativity and insight. This year, instead of bugging your singleton loved one about who we’re dating, why not pull up a chair and ask what we’re doing? Who knows, you may enjoy hearing about it — and find yourself invited over for chocolate, champagne and night cheese! Amanda Duarte is a blissfully single, child-free writer-performer who lives in New York City.
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