As I dragged my suitcase into the house, I heard it playing— “Love, Actually,” my entire family’s favorite Christmas movie. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Except me. I might not have even recognized it had I not also been held hostage by it from my neighbor’s iPad on the flight home, volume cranked to max, no headphones in sight. A holiday movie about being drenched, engulfed, choking on love—primarily romantic love—felt aggressively out of place this Christmas break.
Of course, I had my own doomed-to-fail Hallmark fantasy. There was a guy I had hoped to be with by the holidays—exchange gifts, late-night calls, make him wear matching Christmas pajamas against his will. But, alas, what always happens… happened. Girl meets guy. Girl likes guy. Guy likes girl too! Guy likes ex… much, much more. Cue the annual Ritual of Betrayal™, where I violently ripped my Christmas list off the fridge (his name written on it eight separate times), scratched out all evidence of him, and screamed while my mother watched, concerned but unsurprised.
Serenity
While I was engaging in my usual cycle of rage, delusion, and self-pity, my dear friend Serenity—patron saint of romantically lacking women like myself—was embracing the season’s true spirit by spreading the holiday love. She had been going steady with multiple men—David, Nick, Bodo’s Worker #1, Bodo’s Worker #2, Chase, and Jackson—but she was finally taking a well-deserved break from the roster while home for the holidays. Or so I thought. “I was thinking of going celibate for the break,” she mused one night.
Then, after an appropriately dramatic pause, she added, “But… there’s this military man about to deploy, and this would be, like, my last chance to see him.” I pondered, crafting the most ethical and morally sound response possible: “I think… it would be selfish to NOT hook up with him. Consider it Christmas charity.” Serenity nodded solemnly. “Exaaaaactly. Am I just NOT supposed to spread holiday love and cheer?” And so, Mother Teresa left home with a mission to serve the needy.
Calvin and Alice
Meanwhile, I was leading an underground resistance movement against my brother Calvin and his girlfriend Alice. The Anti-Love Club had only three official members: myself, my youngest brother Anderson, and my best friend Aster. Why? Because we had all been painfully single, and because Calvin and Alice had been dating since high school, meaning their sickeningly cute relationship had been ruining my holiday peace for two consecutive years. So imagine my unholy delight when Calvin confided in me: “We’ve just been arguing about different priorities, y’know?”
I did not, in fact, know. “Uh… we just have different perspectives around sex, if you get what I’m getting at,” he added. What I got was that Calvin once fought asexual allegations when he confessed to his friend group that he had managed to not kiss his girlfriend of four months even once.
Trying to ask his own sister for advice on this matter was a bold choice. “Well,” I sighed dramatically, “you guys are apart for 10 months of the year so—she’s definitely cheating on you.”
“Woah, woah—what?” Calvin snapped his head toward me. “Yep,” I said, barely suppressing a grin. “94% of women in long-distance relationships cheat on their partners.”
“That is absolutely not true.”
I casually adjusted the passenger seat recliner in his car. “Too bad you’re too busy driving to fact-check me.”
Sarah and Caleb
If there was one couple I couldn’t run from, it was my parents. They were college sweethearts—met their freshman year, fell in love, married young, and have spent every waking moment since reminding me that I’m running out of time to find the father of my future pets.
Their marriage survived a tour in Afghanistan, me flunking chemistry sophomore year, and my oldest brother using his degree to become a ski instructor. But nothing tests a marriage like a husband promising to cover the cost of Jimmy John’s catering for the entire in-law family without consulting his wife—the woman who handles the budget.
For the first time in my life, I watched my mother—never angry, never petty—sigh deeply and take my father into the office for a “strongly worded conversation.” On Christmas morning, he pulled a set of papers out of his stocking. “Wonder what these are…” he said with a smirk. With the quickest tongue in the West, I replied: “Divorce papers.”
Margaret, Astor, Eden, and Carolina
“Love, Actually” was still playing in the background when I hosted a PowerPoint night with my girls Aster, Eden, and Carolina. “What. Are. We. Leaving. Behind. This year, girls?” Aster announced, despite not even starting her presentation before arriving. “Annoying weird men,” Eden muttered. A fair response, considering she attracts them like moths to a frat party flame. As we went through our situationship horror stories, I realized that Aster and I had the same fate: both our men left us for blonde women.
But Aster had bravery I did not possess—she caught her ex alone at a frat party, stormed up to him drunk, and yelled, “So where are your little blonde bitches?” She says that memory still replays in slow motion in her mind. “But you’re leaving him behind in 2024, right?” I asked.
She froze. “Oh, uh, well…”
I smirked. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Well, are YOU leaving YOURS behind?” she fired back.
“That’s different,” I scoffed. “He wasn’t that deep to me.” She gave me a look and pointed to the bent, ripped-up, scratched-out Christmas list still hanging on the fridge. I tried not to scream as the carol singers scene in “Love, Actually” started playing on the TV.
Sarah and Caleb
“Basketball tickets!” my dad said excitedly, I sighed and slumped in my chair. “Wait, did you say divorce papers?” Two days later, I came home from a movie (“Nosferatu,” a much more accurate depiction of my holiday romance than “Love, Actually”), to a shocking sight.
My parents, cuddled up on the couch, were watching—you guessed it—”Love, Actually.” Apparently now that my mother-in-law was no longer taking up space in her head about Christmas dinner plans, my mom had a much bigger capacity for love. And forgiveness when it came to pushing the holiday budget.
Calvin and Alice
Calvin, meanwhile, had come down with a terrible sinus infection. Naturally, Alice still came over every day to take care of him. And, as poetic justice would have it, she also got sick. I stood before them, watching them cuddle on the couch, sick and miserable, watching the scene where Emma Thompson realizes Alan Rickman is cheating on her. I smirked. “Wow—well, isn’t that all love gets you: pain, suffering, getting played by a guy you thought was genuine—” I paused for emphasis. “A sinus infection.”
Alice, God bless her, looked at Calvin, smiled, and said, “Oh, well, I’d rather be sick with him than healthy without him.” I tried not to vomit as a frown imprinted itself on my face.
After repeating what I had lived through to Anderson, he muttered, without looking up from his 16th Fortnite victory royale, “God, I hate them, they’re too much.” I picked up a Nerf gun. “Tell me about it,” I said, aiming it at him.
Serenity…and Chase?
Back at school, I sought refuge in the one person I could always count on to stay single forever—Serenity. “So, tell me, how was the military man?” I asked eagerly. “Oh, you know what? I actually didn’t end up hooking up with him,” she said. I blinked. “Oh, okay. Yeah, good on you for staying celibate. What are you doing tonight?” She smiled. “I’m actually going to hang out with Chase. We’re kind of going steady.”
The end times hath come. “Like… boyfriend and girlfriend steady?” I whispered, heart pounding. “We’ve talked about it, so… definitely soon.” Doth the demons of suffering rise to consume me? At that moment, I understood what “Love, Actually” had been trying to tell me all along—that love really is all around. Much to my chagrin.
New Year, New Us?
I wondered if my ex-situationship had done the same holiday reflection. Had he put HIS ex on his Christmas list? Had they reconciled, worn matching pajamas, exchanged cute gifts? I could wonder all I wanted, but one thing was certain: When deciding what to leave behind in 2024, it was me, not her.
Just as I pondered about him, my DMs lit up. “New year, new us?” Not him. A random guy I messaged for a week three months ago. One thing we had in common? A lack of self-respect. So, as a message to him—and myself—I typed back: “More like new year, new person.”
Love, Actually—Maybe
I recalled the last time I watched “Love, Actually” with my family—actually watched it, rather than treating it like background noise while I scrolled through my phone or plotted the downfall of my brother’s relationship. It had started innocently enough: popcorn bucket emptied, phone battery drained, no distractions left. I had no choice but to surrender. To actually pay attention. About halfway through, I sat up, visibly moved. “Wait… why is this movie lowkey fire?” “That’s what I’m saying!” Anderson exclaimed, still fully committed to his Christmas pajamas despite it being 6 p.m.
A realization struck me, one so profound I felt it deep in my soul. “You know,” I said, “it’s almost like this movie isn’t just about romantic love—but also the love you receive from family and friends. Like, Sam and his stepdad, Billy and his manager, Karen and her children and brother, the prime minister…” I felt immensely wise.
Calvin, second-year film major, resident cynic, and man who thinks he knows more than Martin Scorsese, rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s like… exactly the whole point of the movie. Congrats on finally getting it.”
I turned to him with the gravitas of a woman who had been personally victimized by love and whispered, “Or maybe it’s just more obvious to celibate losers like you, Calvin.”
As I sat there, surrounded by my family bickering over leftovers, my best friends plotting their next romantic disasters, and a random man in my DMs trying to resurrect a situationship that never should have existed, I realized something. Maybe love, actual, real, non-Hollywood-manufactured love, had been around me the whole time. Not in some cinematic Christmas airport reunion or in the arms of a guy who would ultimately disappoint me, but in the people who had been there all along—through every rant, every heartbreak, every impulsive decision to text an ex. Maybe I didn’t need a new boyfriend for the holidays. Maybe, against my better judgment, “Love, Actually, was right.” Love actually is all around—much to my luck.
Love this.