CN: eating/food, holidays, spending money
Being single during the holiday season can be a special kind of awful. Christmas, and other annual winter festivities, are heavily geared towards couples or families, excluding independent individuals from most of the ‘merry’ aspects of the season. Of course, we can still participate, but when being asked why you’re single at your family dinner is unavoidable, and laying alone in bed is only worsened by the cold, it’s a little hard to not wish for a partner or two.
I’m not someone who’s miserable or bitter when it comes to being single (I’ve made that very apparent on here haha), and while this season does bum me out a bit, I decided to explore how the holiday’s frame specific activities, or dare say joy itself, is marketed towards people with loved ones to celebrate with. I absolutely love deconstructing social norms, and today I’ve partnered with We-Vibe to bring you my experience navigating traditional “couple-y” activities all on my lonesome.
Baking
Baking is often compared to an act of love. “The last ingredient is love”. or “Baking is only turns out well if done with love.” are both quotes my grandmothers would say. I used to bake a LOT with my family, and I know that my parents and their significant others love doing it together. It’s fun, task oriented, and you get a delicious treat at the end, so it’s basically the perfect DIY date night. Baking alone though.. Is a little less motivating.
Making some fresh baked cookies by myself couldn’t have been more fun though!! I put on a TV show to binge watch, pulled out my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe and went to town. I don’t cook a lot anymore, so taking a couple hours to focus on something physical was really fun. Not to mention delicious. My only regret is that I didn’t share them with anyone, and I ate too much raw cookie dough.
Sexy Evening In
Date nights and sex are very common couples activities during the holidays. Which makes so much sense; taking time away from family responsibilities to pursue pleasure can be so stress relieving. The end of December can indeed be a horny time, and it’s not just me who feels that; according to a survey from Adam & Eve, people had three times more sex, three times more orgasms AND are more sexuality confident during Christmas. For me, accessing my pleasure is easy peasy; except I don’t tend to make a “date night” out of it anymore. I’ve fallen into a rut, of dragging myself to bed, putting a vibe on my clit, coming quickly and hitting the pillow. Not horrible, but not always ideal; sometimes it’s nice to treat myself like I would a partner, you know?
Planning a hot night in for myself felt like a little slice of heaven; I lit some candles, put on a record, gave myself a massage, and snuggled into bed with my new We-Vibe Tease & Please Premium Collection. The Collection comes with the We-Vibe Sync, and a Womanizer Premium; I cannot think of a better combo of products for sexy nights in. The Sync is traditionally a couples toy, but it works as a great solo vibrator as its shape is adjustable to my bod so it can stimulate both my G-spot and clit. I used it to warm up and tease myself in bed, as part of my process for drawing out my luxurious evening. I knew the Womanizer was going to make me come too quickly (it’s suction technology which is one of my favourite types of clitoral stimulation), so I left using it until I was well played with. It was worth it. My orgasms after drawing out my pleasure for the night was explosive.
Christmas Markets & Shopping
This time of year Hamilton is busy with winter markets; I think I posters or FB events for new ones every couple of days. Shopping for gifts is an incredibly popular activity, especially for partners needing to get gifts for their families together. Christmas markets are cute date nights as well, with festive lighting and trees becoming perfect photo opportunities. I always thought it would be cute to go out in the cold to browse the wears of local artisans with a bae, holding mittens and getting hot chocolate. Since being single during the season is a common occurrence for me, I decided to hold my own dang mitten.
Shopping for presents alone isn’t bad at all, especially when I recognize a fair few familiar faces amongst the vendors and attendees. I decided to take this experiment a step further and treat myself too; this is a post about self love so that makes a lot more sense than getting someone else a gift right (don’t worry, I love giving to my friends, I’m not completely selfish). Picking up some nice soaps for myself IRL, and taking advantage of some black friday on much needed items online was the way I achieved this. Absolutely no complaints here; I love shopping for myself. If you can, you deserve to treat yourself too.
All in all these activities weren’t as horrible online as I might have thought; they were actually incredibly good acts of self-care for myself! A lot of “self care” these days is millennials doing one basic human good thing for themselves and saying “hahaha self care!”. While spontaneity can count in maintaining your health, I personally find that I don’t actually take the time to plan things in advance for myself, which I should be doing more often. It can be daily tasks, like taking my vitamins or brushing my teeth, to mediation or masturbation. The later of which has a huge impact on my mental health, but is an activity I rarely schedule.
Planning out solo time during the holidays isn’t something we think to prioritize, so going about these traditionally partnered activities unaccompanied forced me to consider my time by myself as I would plans with my friends or family.
What are you doing at this time of year to prioritize yourself?
This post was sponsored by We-Vibe! All opinions and writing are my own. Photos by Madeline Neumann Photography.