Tis the season to get engaged!  Fa la la la laaaaa la la la laaaaa.

Being single during the holidays is always… special.  It seems like everywhere you turn there are couples canoodling. Each time you check facebook, there is a new “HE PUT A RING ON IT” status.  And to top it off, every time you turn on the TV, there is a Jane Seymour “Open Hearts” or “He bought it at Jared’s!” commercial. Ew.

And in case you missed it last year, the best photo I’ve ever seen in response to this…

We’ve all been there, sister.  It can be exhausting being single around the holidays.  You feel on guard, walls up, not wanting to be a scrooge, but also trying very hard to protect your vulnerable heart.

I had a great group of single girlfriends in DC– strong, independent, successful women, who would let their guards down when together and around the holidays this topic always seemed to come up.  We’d grapple with why it’s so dang hard–even for awesome women–to be single from Thanksgiving through New Years.

Eventually, one of my best friends would pose this question:

But what if you knew this was your last year being single?

What if you knew that this time next year you would be married? How would you live this year differently?

Then we’d each confess all the ways our lives would look different if we were able to glimpse into the future and knew we’d be married the next year.

“I’d soak up more girls’-night-out times.”

“I’d hang out with my high school girls more often.”

“I’d pay off that credit card.”

“I’d quit smoking.”

“I’d really get in shape.”

And on and on we’d go.

We would rattle off a multitude of things we would do or spend time and money on now if we knew it was our last year of singleness.

How absurd is that?  Why weren’t we living like that right then and there?  Why did we think we’d live differently if we actually knew we wouldn’t be single in the near future?

So that is my question for you, all my single ladies, who are pushing through the holidays as a single gal.

If you knew this was your very last Christmas being single, how would you spend it?

Would you live it any differently?  Would you cherish the time with your siblings and parents more?  Would you spend your money differently?  Would you be a bit more light-hearted and a little less annoyed by the rest of the coupled world?

I don’t know what Christmas 2015 is going to bring for you. I don’t know what Christmas 2015 will hold for me.  But I am convinced we should live life as abundantly as we can today. Single, married, happy, healthy, or not.  There is always something else to hope for.  Let’s choose to be joyful and content today, no matter our circumstances.