"Tis the Season to Be Intimate!

Just how much intimacy will you and your loved ones have during this holiday season? For many of us, holiday celebrations include fabulously festive dinners and desserts, warm and cozy celebrations and collapsing at the first available opportunity! The idea of intimacy is not usually something that we think about incorporating into our plans.

Often, our routine involves feasting and laughing together, and then splitting off to watch “the game”, play video games or break into “his” and “hers”groups for the rest of the evening. What ever intimacy existed, ends as the last person steps away from the dinner table and enters into the next “activity”.

Despite the huge opportunity provided by this time together to become more intimately acquainted with each other, we may lose out because we engage in the “routine”, the “tradition”.

At the end of the evening, we’ve had a great time, but do we really know each other any better or more deeply? Could there be some wonderful nugget we’ve missed about each other because we never capitalized on the time we spent together?

This year try something different. Invite your guests to play the “Getting to Know You” game! You’ll need two giant hats or large bowls; mark one “About Me” and the other “About You”.

Have each guest fill out two slips of paper on which they identify two things about themselves that they want to tell everyone. They need to put their name on each slip and put their slips in the “About Me” container.

Then, for the “About You” container, have each guest generate two questions for one other guest. Again, on their slip, they should put the name of the guest they are curious about and put their name on as well.

Play begins after dessert. Decide on how names will be pulled out of each container . Set time limits for responses; make sure everyone has a complete chance to share about themselves.

Once the game gets going you’ll all be able to simply savor and enjoy seeing each other in a way that may not have appeared if “the tradition” was in play instead!

Happy Holidays!


Irisha Brown, M. Ed., M.A., is an Intimacy and Relationship Coach and Proprietress of the boutique, Intimate Engagements, in Montclair, NJ. Please e-mail questions and comments to ib@intimate-engagements.com