Singles' Holiday Guide

If there's one thing I'm always hearing, it's how helpful I am.
"Alison, you're the helpful-est person, I know," people say. "We don't know what we'd do without you."
"Thanks," I say. "I don't know what you'd do either."

In the spirit of helping all my single friends survive the upcoming holidays, I've put together the following Guide to Surviving and Thriving as a Single this Season.


The Company Christmas Party

The two most important things you must decide about the company Christmas party are what to wear and whom to take.  For your attire, I recommend wearing something subdued so that your choice of a date will really pop.  You can bring any of the following people to the party:

1)  An actual date.  Hahaha.  I kid, I kid.  If you knew any actual eligible dates, you'd be out with them right now instead of reading this guide.  But that's OK, because there are many other options.

2)  A friend of the opposite sex.  The beauty of this choice is that no one will know if this is a friend-date or a date-date, leading to awkward conversations throughout the night.  Your CEO might just plop down beside you and ask, "Who's this lucky gentleman (or lady)?"  An additional possible bonus is that your date (or you!) will be likewise confused and will spend the next year planning a wedding that will never happen.

3)  A friend of the same sex.  This choice combines the enjoyment of spending the evening with a friend with the excitement of making all of your co-workers question your sexual orientation.

4)  A relative.  It's cool to bring your cousin to the company party, right?  .... right??

5)  No one.  Going solo solves so many problems: The problem of there not being enough empty chairs at the table, the problem of writing "2" on your RSVP card when "1" is so much easier...  Actually, those are the only two problems it solves, but if those are your priorities, you should definitely go with option #5.


The Family Dinner

As most grandmothers have long known, there's no better place to discuss your singleness than over the holiday dinner table.  Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with the perfect response to your family's questions on the spot.  Here are some suggestions:

Q:  "When will you get married?"
A:  "When will the apple pie be done?"  (Evasion plus confusion.  Perfect.)

Q:  "Are you seeing anyone?"
A:  "No."  (Drop your fork on the floor and duck under the table to get it.  Do not emerge.)

Q:  "Why are you still single?"
A:  "I'm ugly."  (My personal favorite.)

It will also be important to smile and nod appropriately when your great aunt describes how her niece on the other side found her husband.  "She met him on the Christian Mingles!  Or was it the Farmers Only?  Have you ever thought of trying one of those dating sites?"


Accommodations

After your holiday dinner and an evening full of family fun, it will be time to "hit the hay," as they say.  Fortunately, as the only family member without a spouse or a child, and thus the only family member who does not strictly require a bed, you may actually have the opportunity to sleep on some hay!  But if an original Bethlehem-stable kind of Christmas is not for you, your two prime sleeping spots are as follows:

1)  The living room couch.  Pros: It's the highest-quality couch in the house, it may afford a view of the Christmas tree, and you will definitely be the only one to see Santa.  Cons:  Santa might not come if you are spying on him from the living room.

2)  The basement couch.  Pros:  You'll feel like a teenager again!  You'll have your own bedroom in the basement -- cool!  Maybe you can save up your lawn-mowing money for a mini fridge!  Cons:  Your family might forget about you and leave you behind while they take a trip to France, forcing you to fend off potential home invaders by yourself.

Actually, that might make for a pretty cool story, so I recommend option #2.

With parties, dinners, and accommodations taken care of, you're all set for a happy holiday as a surviving, thriving single.  Enjoy!


Disclaimer:  This blog shall in no way be responsible for the consequences of following the advice set forth in this column.  This blog recognizes that singleness humor is best directed at singles and henceforth demands that all non-single readers forget they ever read this column.  This blog would also like to remind this blog's mom that this blog does actually like sleeping on the couch. 

An Open Letter to My Representatives

In light of the news that the House of Representatives just passed a bill to suspend the resettlement of Iraqi and Syrian refugees in America unless they receive even more security clearance (making an already challenging process nearly impossible), I decided it was way past time for me to use my democratic voice to say, "Stop this madness!"

This morning, while waiting in the shop for my car, I wrote to my House representative and my Senators. You can easily contact your own representatives by filling out an email form - just Google "how to contact my senator" or something similar.  Here's my letter:

I'm heartbroken and confused at the recent actions of the House to further restrict the resettlement of Iraqi and Syrian refugees in America. Please know that any rhetoric or legislation that makes the U.S. even less welcoming to these people who have so reasonably fled the violence in their homelands does not represent me either as a Republican or an Iowan. 

We must welcome more, not less. We must love and help these refugees and help them assimilate as much as they are willing to do. It is our moral obligation and it makes prefect sense; millions of people are now stateless and homeless. Where are they supposed to go? We can provide them a state and a home, and so we should do this. 

The security risk is not worth considering here. Terrorists will enter America regardless of what we do about refugee policy. They need not come from Iraq and Syria. They could come from other places. They could be here already. They could get on the Internet and be radicalized from any living room in America. Our fight is against the ideology promoted by the terrorists, and until we win the ideological battle, we have no hope of stopping the recruitment, training, and deployment of terrorists. 

Again, to summarize: Do not close the door to refugees. It's not right, and it won't work. 

By the way, I think my city alone could absorb several thousand refugees from Syria and Iraq. Please send them here. 

Sincerely, 

Alison

A Week of Beautiful Things

Hi friends!  This finds me at a wobbly table in a little food court area at LaGuardia Airport.  Sleepinginairports.net tells me that sleeping in LaGuardia is like sleeping in a dirty bus terminal, but as of 10:00pm it hasn’t been bad!  So far I’ve charged my phone, brushed my teeth, plucked my eyebrows, and lost my water bottle.  In the next few hours, I hope to eat a snack, find my water bottle, read a book, and write this post.

From where I sit, I see about a dozen other travelers scattered singly at tables for two or four.  Some are eating soup or sandwiches from Au Bon Pain (the only restaurant open all night), many are on laptops or phones, and a couple folks are just looking around listlessly. A few half-hearted Christmas garlands are hung from the ceiling, and light jazz is pumping through the loudspeaker.  This place will work just fine.  But let’s think of more beautiful things.

Beautiful Thing #1:  My friend got married. 

A few years ago, I went to a wedding where the bride and groom were in their mid to late thirties.  One of the first things the pastor said was, “Our God is an on-time God.”  Then he paused and let that idea sink in for a little while before continuing the message.  As I celebrated my friend’s marriage, that phrase came to mind.  My friend and her husband had trusted God for many years to provide for them.  And God wasn’t late, He didn’t forget about His kids, He wasn’t powerless to bring together the right people at the right time, and He wasn’t stingy with His blessings. 

So it was fun to celebrate God’s goodness, and spend some time with my friend, and visit NYC.  Woohoo!

Beautiful Thing #2:  I went traveling with my family.

Thanks to my brother’s love of travel deals, he heard of a good miles deal to Turks & Caicos islands.  So my family gathered up a bunch of frequent flyer miles and got ourselves some tickets to the Caribbean. 

My highlights included spending time together, snorkeling, sitting on the beach, and seeing two rainbows and four sunsets over the water.  (My two-year-old niece’s highlights were playing with her grandma and grandpa, playing with her stuffed cats, “washing” sand by throwing handfuls of it into a bucket of water, and destroying every sand castle we tried to help her build.)

I would definitely recommend Turks & Caicos to any of my travel-loving friends.  I’ve never seen such blue water, and it was clear all the way down.  I could tread water and see the ridges of the sand twenty feet below as distinctly as if I was looking through tap water.  Check the photos.

Beautiful Thing #3:  Is about to happen.  Snack time. :)