Family, added stress and forced holiday cheer are a combination that can tear even a healthy, happy relationship down a few pegs.  If your love life is already walking on unsteady legs, the holiday season can leave you with nothing but too much chocolate in your system and a broken heart when everyone else around you is enjoying the holiday season.  To help you get throughout the holiday season with your relationship unscathed, I offer up these friendly tips.

Don’t Go Looking For Trouble

If you know taking your very liberal, tattooed and pierced, motorcycle driving new flame over to your very conservative and religious parent’s house for their fancy Christmas Eve dinner is going to end horribly, don’t do it.

If you’re sure that it’s too soon to meet the parents, save it until your relationship is stronger, don’t feel forced to play games just because it is the holiday season.

If you and your current partner agreed on a price range for gifts, don’t blow it and risk getting into a huge fight or scaring him or her off with a super, extravagant gift.

The thing to take away from this little piece of advice is if you know it’s a bad idea or you have a strong feeling that it is a bad idea, don’t go looking for trouble.  The holiday season is stressful enough without you adding more drama to the frying pan.

Avoid Stress

Most people don’t deal well with stress:  they freak out, they get snappy, they break down into ungraceful tears. 

Most holidays come with an added dose of stress.  Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal if your significant other made omelets and used up all the eggs; but on Christmas Eve, when everything is closed and you realize that there aren’t any eggs in the house and “now the whole holiday is ruined!,” things might get a little tense in your house and in your love life.  After all, he made the omelets for you and didn’t know that you needed exactly four eggs to make your special holiday treats.

If you take a little time and plan for your holiday season, you can cut out a lot of the stress of the holidays.  But be warned, you can never get rid of all the stress associated with the holidays (or life for that matter) so learning how to cope without freaking out and yelling at your significant other will get you through more than just the holiday season!