The short answer to this is yes. For this we can blame Hollywood and those PDA couples who seem to be drunk off the Christmas spirit. From Christmas rom coms to social media posts on what constitutes a ‘proper’ Christmas, there becomes this pressure to have a significant other to share certain activities with. Whether that is a hand to hold at an ice rink, or someone to make a gingerbread house with. There is an underlying pressure to create a Christmas that is coherent with Andy William’s famous song ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’.
Being single at Christmas sucks. Social media bombards you with photos of couples sharing magical moments whilst you are faced with family members asking the dreaded question of how your romantic life is going. Romantic love is heavily associated with Christmas. There are a multitude of films that have the same ending in which Christmas time makes everyone fall in love. For instance, in the film The Holiday, two single women are hell bent on removing themselves from any male attention, but still manage to fall head over heels for guys since it’s Christmas. Or, in Love Actually, where there are ten separate scenarios that all manage to end in some sort of romance because, again, it’s Christmas!
What Hollywood fails to romanticise is the beauty of platonic relationships at Christmas. For you can complete the ‘must-do’ couple activities with your best friends. In fact, platonic love and relationships are not romanticised enough. Christmas is the ideal opportunity to substantiate the love you have for those closest to you. So, sharing these supposed ‘romantic’ activities with friends may be the solution to feeling extremely single at Christmas.
However, let’s not gloss over how problematic over-romanticism can be for those struggling with seasonal depression. It’s darker quicker, it’s colder, motivation to do anything lessens, pessimism grows, the end of semester assessments start, and people can easily begin to spiral. Over-romanticising love and affection is easier to do from your own room. Couples thrive off the juxtaposition of it being cold outside, but themselves feeling warm on the inside since they are in love. Those who do not experience this can end up just feeling cold. Humans tend to self-disrupt to combat, and perpetuate, the loneliness that is caused at Christmas time. By this logic, over-romanticising Christmas becomes the problem.
What is not given justice is the pressure couples feel during Christmas time. There is an expectation to be happy and unified during Christmas, yet this is not the case. From a student’s perspective, money is always tight, so when trying to make Christmas the best time of year there are many financial walls that prevent buying your significant other the perfect gift or treating them at Sheffield’s Christmas Market. Maybe next year we can have the Yorkshire Pudding wrap. The over-romanticised Christmas costs too much for an average person, so the expectations of a perfect Christmas will never be fulfilled.
All in all, yes, love and relationships are over-romanticised. This is a problem, regardless of how great the films are that exploit this. There are ways around this, such as ignoring the fact you are single and focusing on your friends and family members. For those that are not single, the best advice is to remove expectations of romance during Christmas and just enjoy the moments you have with your significant other.