Top 10 Tips for Managing the Holidays in Polyamory
The holidays are not, for many polyamorists, the most wonderful time of the year. They arrive as a dense cluster of dates: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year’s, each laden with ritual, family, love, and a remarkable number of expectations. These dates carry deep meaning, even as many are shaped by colonial histories. They’re also often one of the few times in the year working-class people get an extended period off, which raises the stakes, turning holiday decisions into questions of not just belonging but also access and equity. When time is scarce, whether you are chosen on a culturally symbolic date carries extra weight. To be left out by a partner during the holidays can feel like a quiet demotion, a signal about where you stand with them and family, and that can be deeply wounding.
Polyamorists who are hinges (the person in between, dating two or more people) often walk a tightrope during the holidays, balancing extended family obligations, children, if they have any, and their partners’ expectations. The strain intensifies when partners don’t get along, when co-parents or relatives haven’t fully integrated or accepted a polyamorous life, or when logistics alone begin to resemble a minor military operation. Hinging, in these moments, requires a level of attentiveness that monogamy rarely demands: careful, sometimes surgical thinking about scheduling, symbolism, and potential emotional fallouts.
That pressure can be overwhelming. One year, my partner Nick said, quite sincerely, with the air of a man contemplating a lengthy prison sentence, that he would rather spend Christmas alone, eating something beige and staring at a wall, than attempt to calculate who he was meant to sleep next to on Christmas Day, which of his partners’ New Year’s Eve parties he was supposed to attend, and, in the unlikely event that he found himself with both of us at midnight, whose mouth he was contractually obligated to aim for first.
Each year, my polyamory coaching sessions fill up with hinges seeking support to mediate their partners’ differing needs and expectations around the holidays. After a lifetime of being polyamorous, living it myself and coaching countless holiday meltdowns, these are my 10 hard-earned strategies for managing the holidays as a polyamorist
