First Christmas as Husband and Wife: How to Make It Special

Christmas is a time for love, family and togetherness. This year, for the first time as a married couple, you’ll spend Christmas together in love and marriage as a brand-new family partnership.

You might not spend the entire Yuletide period alone together, as your extended families will likely want a piece of both of you for at least a portion. While family gatherings are always something to look forward to, you’ll both be eager to escape your moms, dads, and siblings to spend some alone time without distractions or encumbrances. What will you do to make your first Christmas as husband and wife extraordinary and memorable?

Set Aside Time for Each Other and Your Love

Although family get-togethers are practically unavoidable over Christmastime, you’ll want to ensure that part of these special holidays are spent together, alone in each other’s company. You’re married, so you’ve had time to assess your long-term compatibility, but this Christmas is still the first of your married life — a time memories are made of. 

Enjoy some time with your families, but don’t pass up the opportunity to designate some time away together, even if only for Christmas Eve and Christmas Night. Your moms and dads will understand!

Christmas Traditions are Important

Christmas is about the past, present, and future. Since you’re likely from differing backgrounds, you’ll both have holiday traditions you’re used to. Keep hold of these, whether they involve other family members or not. 

Perhaps wifey’s tradition is to reuse gift wrap paper to wrap presents and place them under the tree on Christmas Eve in preparation for the next day’s family gathering. Maybe hubby’s tradition is to exchange heartfelt gifts at that time. You can do both things and create new traditions stretching from the present to the future. 

Whatever your existing traditions are, uphold them together. By celebrating them as a married couple for the first time, you’ll add a new perspective, and they’ll become familiar but new at the same time. 

Then, create other new traditions together. Switch off all the lights and share a bottle of wine and some light canapés by the Christmas tree light before departing for a meal at your favorite restaurant. If you’re doing so, remember to prebook, as there may be plenty of others with similar traditions on this unique night of the year! 

Your First Christmas Eve Together as Husband and Wife

Besides gift wrapping and exchanging, you can try many other novel and exciting ideas on your first Christmas Eve as newlyweds. Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy them so much they’ll become new traditions that you can experience alone or with your kids in the future.

1. Take a Stroll Through the City

Depending on where you live, a drive into the city on Christmas Eve can be a highlight. Park the car in a safe area and take a casual stroll, arm in arm, through the bustling Christmas nightlife. Do some window shopping, wish passers-by well and relax in each other’s company. 

Maybe you’ll find a coffee shop on the route. Enjoy a steaming cup while watching excited children with their parents as they admire the street and shop decorations. Perhaps speak of your plans for the future together. Relax and enjoy the yuletide spirit that’s enveloping you.

2. Go Carol Singing

Caroling is a time-honored tradition that you can make your own. If you’re brave enough, start the process together and duet some well-known carols in your neighborhood. Before you know it, others will likely join you, and by the end of your street, you may be part of an intrepid carol choir belting out “Silent Night” at the top of your voice.

3. Volunteer at a Shelter

Christmas is a time for giving. Bringing a smile to the faces of those less fortunate is a worthy way of spending your time and improving theirs. It’s essential to appreciate how blessed you are in comparison to some others around you and to do your part, however small, to enrich others’ lives for a short period, which makes a massive difference in the lives of many.

Consider preparing beforehand by wrapping some token gifts to present those folk as you see them. As you encounter them and pass over these gifts, start the odd conversation and show how you care. The light in their eyes will likely burn brighter than the glowing angel on top of your tree at home. 

4. Have a Baking Contest Making Christmas Cookies

If you decide to enjoy Christmas Eve at home, bring out your marital competitive spirit to join the festive one. Challenge hubby or wifey to a Christmas-style cookie bake-off, and expect the mess that follows. If the contest includes a flour fight halfway through, all the better. 

Tease each other about the resulting cookies, but don’t declare a winner. You’re both winners by spending the time having fun in each other’s company.

5. Be Alone, Together

The most important part of your first Christmas Eve together as a married couple is that you’re together. Lock all the doors, light the log fire and relax on the rug in each other’s company. Bask in the glow of the fire and Christmas lights as husband and wife. At this point, nothing and nobody else matters.

With a slow and sultry soundtrack playing softly in the background, laugh, talk about your present and future or say almost nothing at all. Just be. Together. In love.

Ensure you’ve already lined up the romantic movies for when it’s time to depart for the bedroom. Cuddle up together and watch Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan being Harry and Sally or anything else that tickles your combined fancies. When the movies are over, move on to what comes next. There’s no need for details — you’re spending your first Christmas Eve married together, so you’ll know.

Your First Yuletide of Forever as a Married Couple

As you know, yuletide encompasses the whole Christmas season, so there’s plenty of time for family, friends and festive socializing. There’s also time to plan extended activities for yourselves as a married couple enjoying your first Christmas together. 

Maybe you’ll take a break away at one of Key Largo’s state parks or on the trails of Lake Tahoe together during the period. Perhaps you’ll decide a few shorter road trips are the way to go. You’ll surely combine to set up the Christmas decorations at the beginning of the season and might decide to create a family Christmas greeting card for your friends and family.

With the odd romantic restaurant escape and combining to host a dinner party at home for friends, you’ll find much to do to celebrate your love for each other over the first extra-special festive season of many during your married life. Make memories and new traditions, and spend each day of Christmas together, in life and in love.