Holiday planning is usually about everyone but ourselves. We buy presents for everyone else, we plan special meals, we rearrange work and other social events, and we usually cut way back on time for ourselves to make room for the onslaught of others.

This holiday sex tip is part self-loving and part survival tip. One of the reasons many of us lose it over the holidays is a lack of balance. We don’t just cut out some of our “me” time, we take no time for ourselves, or our romantic partners, at all.

This week make plans for at least one illicit rendezvous with your partner (or yourself) during the holidays. If you have a lot of family obligations that’s no excuse. You can always find five minutes to hide in a bathroom, closet, or the car.

Your plan should be very detailed, leave nothing to chance:

  • Pick a specific date and a specific time
  • Think about how long you’ll have for your date. Make it reasonable, keep it short
  • Choose a location that you know will be available
  • Decide what you want to do
  • Consider any props: outfits, safer sex gear, sex toys, and put them away somewhere you can easily get them on the specified day.

If you’re making a plan for you and a partner, you may or may not want to let them in on the plan. If you don’t, you run the risk of them “not being in the mood” and being distracted by holiday stress. If you do let them in you ruin a perfectly good sex surprise.

You might want to plan a phone sex date just before leaving work on the 24th. You might want to plan a late night romp after the presents are wrapped but before the kids wake up on the 25th. It might be a date with yourself sometime in the middle of a long day surrounded by extended family.

Whatever you choose, consider this a complete mental health holiday, and even if it’s only ten minutes, appreciate at least ten minutes of emotional, physical, and spiritual rejuvenation.

Have fun!

The holiday season is one of the few times each year when we are encouraged to ask for things we want. But there are limits on what we’re “supposed” to ask for. New clothes? Yes. A cordless drill? Sure. A little extra time in the oral sex department? Ummm…probably not.

One of the obvious problems is that we’re rarely encouraged to talk openly with our partners about our sexual desires. Sex, we’re told, comes naturally. Which means we should just know what our partner wants and needs at any given moment. But anyone who has had sex, will know this isn’t true.

Today’s tip asks you to add to your holiday wish list. You can still lust after the complete series box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or a new I Pod, but I want you to keep digging, past the consumer desires, and into the larger private repository of your sexual interests. What would you love to try with your partner sometime over the holidays? A new position? A sex toy? Fantasy role playing? Simply more time to have the sex you are already having?

Come up with a list of three things* you’d love to do. Here are some guidelines: The first activity should be something you’d like to do to your partner. The second should be something you want your partner to do to you The last activity is something new for both of you, or at least something you haven’t done together.

You can tell your partner you’re doing this, and ask them to do the same. Or take control of the sled this holiday season, and see where it takes you. Remember to establish good ground rules about sharing sexual wishes, including no judgment and no guilt for saying no or making changes to the wishes.

*If you celebrate Hannukah, or want to pay homage to the festival of lights, you can come up with eight activities and spread them out over eight days.

Have fun!