How to be Single During the Holidays

by Kay Winders

The holidays are a great time to be with the people you love. For many people, this means spending time with their husband or wife and their children. For many, it means spending time with their extended family, including those near and far.

For singles, the holidays can be a bittersweet time. It can be both a joyous time and a lonely time. By seeing everyone else with their spouses and their children, you may start dwelling on the fact that you are not with anyone. Add to that the inevitable questions, comments, or outright pressure you may face from family and friends about why you’re still single or just when you’re going to get married or have kids.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There are a few ways that you can get through the holiday season and make it just as fun and joyous not just in spite of your single status, but because of it. Here’s how to be single (and fabulous) at the holidays:

Spend Time with Other Singles

When you spend all your time with families and married couples, you may end up comparing your situation to theirs and feeling worse about your situation than you need to feel. You also might face the inevitable barrage of questions about your single status, which can annoy you and make you feel worse.

Don’t subject yourself to that. Instead, choose to spend the majority of your time around other singles. These are people who can commiserate with you about being single — or celebrate how fabulous it is to be single.

Attend Lots of Parties

Parties aren’t just a great way to celebrate the holiday season — they are also a great way to meet new people and to take your mind off things (like how you’re going to deal with your mother asking you why you still haven’t had a baby). You never know: You also just might meet someone fabulous at one of the parties!

Of course, not all parties are going to lift your spirits. If the invite comes from a married couple with kids, chances are that the other guests will also be married or have kids. Being around a lot of couples may only remind you of your single status — or bring obnoxious questions. Better to stick to parties with other singles, young people, or co-workers.

Host Your Own Party

Don’t wait to be asked to the dance — host your own! Hosting your own party can make you feel fun, popular, and loved — all the things you might not be feeling without a mate at your side during the holidays. Throw your own party and invite all your friends and co-workers. You’ll be too busy kissing under the mistletoe and singing Christmas carols to worry about why you’re single (or if it matters).

Have a Sense of Humor

Instead of getting defensive or angry at the inevitable questions you will get about your single status — “Do you think you’ll ever get married?” “Aren’t you worried it will be too late to have kids?” — adopt a sense of humor about it. Don’t honor the questions with genuine answers. Say things like, “No, I’m too young to get married” (even if you’re 50) or “Oh, man, I forgot that I need to have kids! I better make an appointment to do that next week.”

Of course, you’ll have to temper your humor for your audience. While you do want to deflect questions and make light of the situation, you don’t want to create a holiday rumble at the dinner table.

Remember the Benefits

One of the best ways to get through the holidays when you’re single is to remember all the reasons it’s great to be single. Think about it: You don’t have to argue about whose family you will visit for Christmas dinner. You don’t have to suffer unbearable in-laws. You can sleep in any day you want. You don’t have to put up a Christmas tree or decorations if you don’t want to. You can eat pumpkin pie and eggnog every day for breakfast if you want.

Being single means doing what you want when you want. Remember that and do something fun!

The holidays don’t have to be a lonely time or a dreaded time in which you subject yourself to even more questions about why you’re still not married. Use these tips to get you through the holidays so that it’s a fun and festive time for you, too — single or not.

How do you get through the holidays when you’re single? Share your tips in the comments!

About the Author: Kay Winders is presently the resident writer for www.badcreditloans.org, where she researches the best way for people to pay off their debts without damaging their credit. In her spare time, she enjoys freelance writing, the beach and gardening.

Emerging Trend in Marriage: Shared Spousal Roles

by Krista Meyers

If you consider how men and women share roles in their marriage, you will note that these roles have evolved over time. Even up to the middle to late twentieth century, the roles of husband and wife have changed quite a bit. Where roles were a bit more defined across the genders, today, these roles overlap and many duties are shared between spouses. The shared roles can facilitate for a more harmonious marital relationship especially when children are involved.

Primary Provider

In the past and still practiced today by some families, husbands typically would be the breadwinners, who would work all day, earn the family income and do the family budget. The wife would stay home, take care of the children, prepare meals and take care of the house. Whereas today, this role has been reversed in some marriages where some men stay home with the children while the wife goes out and earns an income. Some families opt for this because the wife has more earning power. This shared role can work especially if the husband is pursuing online studies because he gets more free time to study.

Budgeting

Shared roles are becoming prevalent in marriages especially when it comes to finances today. There are some men who allow their wives to manage the household finances or vice versa. More efficient households share this task. It not only keeps the finances in the open but it reduces fights over money. Money should not be the central focus in the relationship, but where the finances are handled as a team and each spouse has input, this shared responsibility can be the key to financial success.

Chores

Household chores can be unbalanced in some marriages. The typical marriage may have the wife doing the chores inside the home and the husband taking care of the vehicles, the yard and all other outside tasks. Other marriages where responsibilities are shared, there is compromise and teamwork. The spouses that work together get things done more efficiently. There will always be a particular task that is better handled that one of the spouses but marital camaraderie makes the workload seem lighter.

Children’s Welfare

Raising children has been seen in the past as a woman’s role. However, today, it is widely accepted that children need their fathers’ input in their lives. Therefore, many fathers are taking a more active role in raising their children. As a husband shares this role with his wife, he makes a strong statement and impact of his children’s lives. It not only eases the mother’s burden, but his input is very important in shaping the children’s lives.

Today, the emerging trend is that husbands and wives share or alternate roles in the household. Spouses are sharing the finances, household chores and raising the children together. Husbands are also taking the opportunity to be stay-at-home fathers. The roles in a marriage have now evolved. A marriage should be based on love, trust and shared responsibility. Each spouse brings something special into the marriage and the spirit of collaboration makes the marriage be even more successful.

About the author: Krista Meyers is a guest post author who specializes in writing about marriage, tips about matchmaking services, dating whatnots and other personal views about people’s relationships. 

Help Baby Emmanuel

A Guest Post By SamKitots

Three weeks ago, Sarah’s cousin Mwikali had come to the prime of her pregnancy duration. Her boyfriend had run off upon hearing that she was pregnant and she had to go back to her father’s house. This was one of the hardest choices she had to make as this relationship was her way out of the desolate family. Mwikali’s mum had long since died and her dad was very depressed for a while. Her brothers, school dropouts, were also staying in the house with her dad. None of them was really making headway with the chang’aa brewing. Desolation had struck the family and a baby was on the way.

Mwikali was insistent on making things work. She knew that this wasn’t going to be a family curse and decided that keeping the baby and bringing the child up in a positively enabling environment would be the way to go. Sarah always wanted to have such courage. She watched as Mwikali went through the motions of expecting a baby, as she dealt with the public ridicule and the shame that came with being sent back home to the village from whence she came. Time came and Sarah was called to the big city for a job. She wanted to be there to support Mwikali, but Mwikali encouraged her to go for this starter job. “When I can travel with the baby, and your find a place to stay, I will come and visit you, maybe we will create a better world for this child”

Sarah hesitantly left and made her way to her new job as a house help.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, Sarah was getting ready to go for her usual day off and that’s when she got the call from her dad. Mwikali had gone into labour early that morning.

The family was caught by surprise and they called a nearby family for assistance. There was a new mother in the house and she came out to help Mwikali push through the delivery. A baby boy was born. Innocent as ever, the child was healthy. Mwikali was happy. After a few minutes she started bleeding. They could not figure out why and needed to rush Mwikali to the nearest hospital which was over twenty kilometers away. The nearest vehicle was five kilometers away. By the time a vehicle came, Mwikali had lost a lot of blood and had passed out. Mwikali was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. She had not even had a chance to name the child.

The above story is a true account of real events. However, one thing is for sure, God has brought this situation for us to rally together and assist this child. A mere Kshs. 600 could feed this baby for a week. Clothes in the village are hard to come by. Should you wish to assist make life easier for this child, feel free to get in-touch with me. My wife and I have committed to supporting the child until he is weaned. Your support will be highly appreciated.

Donations can be dropped at Kingdom Business Network along Kabarnet Road, off Ngong road, behind Uchumi Hyper. Label the donation c/o @SamKitots and I will get them. Monetary donations can be sent to M-pesa number 0721 411 461. Any assistance will be highly appreciated.

THE DAY’S

Appreciation: Sam for taking care of the baby who is now three weeks old and is called Emmanuel.