<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  In 2003, Jessica Comeau&amp;#039;s older brother was 32, and that year for Christmas, his girlfriend gave him an ultimatum: Get down on one knee by the time Santa had done his rounds or it was over between them.  After all, they&amp;#039;d been dating for seven years.  Comeau says she and her brother drank their weight at a local bar, and by the time they got home, he seemed morose. In an effort to distract him, she put on a funny movie and fell asleep on the loveseat. By the end of Christmas day, with the whole family gathered, he&amp;#039;d failed to make his deadline.  But all ended well: Within a year, his ex announced her engagement to someone else. Her brother too eventually got married\u2014to a woman he proposed to after four months.  Comeau&amp;#039;s story, however, illustrates a larger point: For anyone in a long-term relationship, the holidays aren&amp;#039;t just fun and games\u2014they&amp;#039;re a make-or-break month or two. Call it the holy trinity\u2014you have all your friends and family in one place, time off from work to actually reflect on your life, and that ever-present holiday spirit, urging you to surround yourself with your nearest and dearest. Suddenly any ugly are-we-or-aren&amp;#039;t-we, should-we-or-shouldn&amp;#039;t-we relationship ambiguity looms larger than the balloons in the Thanksgiving Day parade.  Some couples crack under the pressure and call it quits. But at least an equal number, surrounded by loved ones and sleighfuls of good tidings, decide to make it official.  In fact, depending on whom you talk to, December vies with February for the month of the year when the most diamond rings bedazzle new hands.  According to a spokesperson from Bing.com, the new Microsoft-powered search engine saw searches for terms like &amp;quot;diamond&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;engagement ring&amp;quot; spike by nearly 340 percent during late October and early November.  &amp;quot;Thanksgiving to New Year&amp;#039;s is our best time for business,&amp;quot; says Lita Asscher, president of Royal Asscher North America, the company that created the popular Asscher-cut diamond. &amp;quot;Percentage-wise, the last three months account for 50 percent of engagement rings we sell each year.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s hard for men to know exactly when to propose, and many want to do it around family,&amp;quot; concurs Yehouda Saketkhou, chief designer for Yael Designs, a jewelry house in San Francisco. &amp;quot;Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year&amp;#039;s are the busiest occasions for sales.&amp;quot; Many women too are aware that it&amp;#039;s a prime season for more than mistletoe: &amp;quot;Women are romantics by nature. When they&amp;#039;re in a relationship that&amp;#039;s going well, most are hoping for that `unexpected&amp;#039; ring to appear in their stocking or in front of a fire,&amp;quot; says Svetlana Novikova, a matchmaker in New York City. Some who don&amp;#039;t get one are let down, she says. Others decide that the relationship isn&amp;#039;t going anywhere and call it quits\u2014while promising themselves they&amp;#039;ll find true love in the New Year. That&amp;#039;s just what happened to Stacy Shwed, 35, a psychologist on Long Island.   &amp;quot;I have actually ended two relationships right before the holidays, and yes, I do believe the holiday season had something to do with it,&amp;quot; she says. One was a relationship that ended when she was 22; the other was her marriage\u2014which she left two years ago. Both times, the pressure of the holidays forced her hand. &amp;quot;During holiday time, society tells you that you&amp;#039;ve got to start thinking about the people that mean the most to you\u2014buying them nice presents and spending quality time together,&amp;quot; she says.  After 10 years of marriage, she and her husband were making plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas, when Shwed started to feel seriously pressured. &amp;quot;It was the breaking point,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I was like, I&amp;#039;m either going to break up with him by the holidays\u2014or fake my way through.&amp;quot; She didn&amp;#039;t want to keep up a facade. In November, she told him she wanted a divorce\u2014and Shwed says she sees many of her clients go through the same deliberation. &amp;quot;I think the biggest reason people break up before or after the holiday is guilt,&amp;quot; she says, adding, &amp;quot;If they suffer through the holiday, they tend to stay together longer because in their minds, they have to justify what they did to get that far.&amp;quot; Of course, the presence of friends and family can also tip the romantic scales in the other direction.  Many happy couples like to take advantage of having everyone they love in one place. John, 36, proposed to Mardi Milia, 34, beside the family Christmas tree in 2007. On December 27, 2008, they got married at St. Vincent de Paul Church in downtown Chicago.   &amp;quot;I always wanted a Christmas wedding,&amp;quot; says Milia. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s my favorite time of the year.&amp;quot;  The church&amp;#039;s holiday decorations were breathtaking, she says, and they knew the city would be alive with holiday lights and good cheer. Even their guests felt more festive: &amp;quot;It was apparent in the number of people on the dance floor and the amount of alcohol consumed that night!&amp;quot; she says. And that, in a roasted chestnut shell, is the upshot of tying the knot during the holidays.  Of course, no one in an LTR (long-term relationship) is safe from the specter of BRD (big relationship decisions) until after New Year&amp;#039;s\u2014and on that fateful day, too, relationships go both ways.  In 2003, Christine Maxfield, now 31, bid her long-term boyfriend adieu as the clock struck midnight.  She&amp;#039;d realized a while back that the relationship wasn&amp;#039;t right, but when they started arguing\u2014again\u2014as the proverbial ball dropped, something snapped.  &amp;quot;I guess in a way it was the deadline of `out with the old, in with the new,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I knew I didn&amp;#039;t want to start the New Year with someone in my life who created such negativity.&amp;quot;  Just as with Christmas, there are two sides to the coin. Karen Montgomery and her now-husband, Rodrigo, both 33, chose to tie the knot during the New Year&amp;#039;s holiday because it was the perfect time to plan a weeklong party. Though they were both living abroad, teaching in Korea, they planned a wedding in Miami, where Rodrigo had grown up.  &amp;quot;Every night, we had something really fun planned,&amp;quot; says Montgomery. &amp;quot;We partied in Miami with friends and family on New Year&amp;#039;s Eve, had our rehearsal dinner on the first, and married on the second. There was definitely an optimistic feel to it. The New Year is a special time for everyone.&amp;quot; So are the holidays\u2014which goes a long way in explaining why it&amp;#039;s also the time of year when relationships seem to be under a microscope. Then again, sometimes it&amp;#039;s not society&amp;#039;s expectations, family pressure, or even nosy great-aunt so-and-so asking when you&amp;#039;re finally going to tie the knot that makes you decide to upgrade your relationship status. Ali and Seth Bogner, 40 and 47, were so sure the holiday spirit would transport their guests, they threw a surprise Christmas Eve wedding for 75, disguised as a tree-trimming party, just for the joy of it.  &amp;quot;We thought we&amp;#039;d never get married,&amp;quot; says Bogner. &amp;quot;Our relationship was so perfect, we didn&amp;#039;t want to do anything to ruin it, but after our son was born, we started to discuss the possibility a bit more.&amp;quot;  They&amp;#039;d just brought a beautiful baby into the world and moved into a big Manhattan loft; the time seemed right for a celebration. &amp;quot;I remember saying, `We should shock the shit out of everyone and get married at the party,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We felt that a surprise wedding would satisfy all our desires\u2014we didn&amp;#039;t want it to be about flowers, dresses, outfits, gifts. We wanted everyone there to purely celebrate our love and joy for one another.&amp;quot;  They mailed out invites in mid-December asking people to come trim their tree. When guests arrived, the couple greeted them in regular party clothes, the only clue a handful of candy canes Ali distributed to her closest girlfriends in lieu of bouquets.  When the entire unsuspecting wedding party was present, Ali made a beeline to the bathroom to change into her dress. The only person in on the secret was her hairstylist, on hand to help.  Then Seth shut off the music. &amp;quot;I have an announcement to make,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;Ali and I have finally decided to get married\u2014right here, right now!&amp;quot; Everyone screamed so loud, the floor shook. They pulled a canopy out from its hiding place under the couch. By the time they were done, there wasn&amp;#039;t a dry eye in the house.  &amp;quot;It was about celebrating our love, and there was absolutely nothing that tainted the integrity of that pure intention,&amp;quot; she says. Of course, if the New Year comes and goes\u2014bringing neither bling nor breakup\u2014Valentine&amp;#039;s Day is but a heartbeat away. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a10686/how-the-holidays-affect-relationships-386521/>