Rewriting the Script: Creating Your Own Holiday Traditions as a Gay Couple

Setting the scene

I am in Palm Springs, staring at a store aisle at Home Depot that looks like the holidays exploded. Glitter on the floor, plastic reindeer, a woman arguing with her partner about which wrapping paper is more festive. I can almost hear my clients in the background saying what they always say this time of year: “We do not even like half the things we do for the holidays, but we keep doing them anyway.”

That is usually the moment I know we are not really talking about tinsel. We are talking about scripts. The old, inherited stories about what holidays are supposed to look like and what it means to be a good son, a good partner, or a good gay man. And for a lot of gay couples, those scripts were never written with us in mind.

The old script many of us inherited

If you grew up in a family where the holidays were loud, complicated, or quietly painful, you probably know this script by heart. You show up. You smile. You do not make things awkward. You let the comments slide. You pretend not to notice the tension. You go along with traditions that do not fit your life now, because it feels easier than disappointing anyone.

For many gay men, the holidays also came with a side of shame. Maybe it was the year a relative asked why you never brought a girl home. Maybe it was the sermons, the jokes at the dinner table, or the silence around anything queer. Even if your family has softened over time, your nervous system remembers. So now, as a couple, you are trying to celebrate in a space that still carries echoes of “You do not belong here.”

When holidays stop fitting the life you built

Fast forward to your current life. You and your partner share a home, maybe a dog, maybe a mortgage, and a hard won sense of who you are. But every November and December, you find yourselves pulled back into old roles.

One partner may feel loyal to his family’s way of doing things. The other feels like he disappears when you walk through that front door. Or you both feel torn between several families, friend groups, and work obligations. The holidays start to feel less like celebration and more like trying to avoid getting in trouble with anyone.

This is usually where resentment starts to grow. Not because of the tree or the food, but because no one has given your relationship permission to write its own script.

Giving yourselves permission to start over

Here is the part that often surprises couples. There is no rule that says you have to keep doing holidays the way they have always been done.

As adults, and especially as gay men who have already done the hard work of coming out, you are allowed to ask a very simple question: “Does this still work for us?” If the answer is no, that does not mean you are selfish or ungrateful. It means you are awake.

Rewriting the script is not about rejecting your family or burning everything down. It is about putting your relationship at the center and building traditions around that, instead of squeezing your relationship into whatever is left.

Keep, toss, and reinvent

A simple way to start this process is something I call keep, toss, and reinvent.

Sit down together and make three short lists:

• Keep: Traditions that genuinely feel good to both of you. Maybe it is your mother’s stuffing, watching a certain movie, or calling an older relative who has always loved you well. • Toss: Traditions that leave one or both of you feeling anxious, invisible, ashamed, or just drained. These are the ones you are allowed to gently let go of. • Reinvent: Traditions that have some meaning, but need to be updated to fit your life as a gay couple.

For example, maybe you used to spend Christmas morning pretending to be straight at your parents’ house. Reinventing might look like visiting family later in the day, but claiming Christmas morning as your private time as a couple at home. Same holiday, different script.

Examples of new traditions that fit you

Once couples give themselves permission to change things, their creativity shows up fast. I have seen gay couples create:

• A “chosen family” dinner on a different night, where the guest list is all queer friends and allies, and the rule is that everyone gets to show up exactly as they are.

• A holiday escape every other year, where instead of doing the full family circuit, they go to a quiet place together, exchange small gifts, and have one honest conversation about the year they just survived.

• A simple ritual at home, like lighting a candle for people they have lost and reading a short note of gratitude for the life they have now.

None of these require a big budget. What they have in common is that they are chosen on purpose, not out of guilt. They send a clear message to both partners: our life together is worth designing, not just enduring.

Dealing with family when you change the script

Of course, once you start changing traditions, families notice. This is where a lot of couples get scared and slide back into old patterns. You might worry that your parents will be hurt, that siblings will talk, that you will be seen as difficult.

One thing I remind couples is that you can be kind and clear at the same time. You might say something like, “We love seeing you, and we also need some time that is just ours as a couple. This year we are going to do our own Christmas morning together, and then we will join everyone in the afternoon.”

Will everyone love it? Maybe not. But part of being in a long term relationship is learning to tolerate a little disappointment from others in order to take good care of the life you are building together.

Bringing it back to your relationship

Underneath all of this, holiday traditions are really about the same thing I talk about throughout Making Love Last: your emotional bank account as a couple. Every intentional ritual is like a small deposit. Every time you ignore what you both need in order to keep the old script going, you make a withdrawal.

When you start creating your own traditions, you are not just rearranging calendars. You are telling each other, “Our relationship counts. Our needs matter. We are allowed to build something that fits us, not just what is expected.” That message is much more powerful than any gift you can put under a tree.

A gentle next step

If this feels like a lot, you do not have to redesign the entire season in one year. Start small. Pick one thing to keep, one thing to toss, and one small tradition to reinvent or create from scratch.

Then, after the holidays, check in with each other. Did this feel better, worse, or just different? What did you miss? What felt like relief?

Chapter Nine of Making Love Last: A Workbook For Gay Male Couples To Build Deeper Connection, Communication and Trust goes deeper into rituals, celebrations, and how they support gay male couples across the whole year, not just in December. The point is not to create a picture perfect holiday. The point is to create a life together that feels more and more like it actually belongs to you.

Buy The Book Here

Dr Steve May

www.drstevemay.com