With Thanksgiving already under your belt, you might very well be feeling cocky right now.  BAfter all, you met her parents, you correctly guessed her dad’s favorite football team, and you’re fairly sure no one noticed when you dropped grandma’s pumpkin pie.  More important, you restrained yourself from calling 911 after her father threatened to bury you in the backyard if you ever hurt “his baby.”  A successful evening, no doubt!

Congratulations—that was the easy holiday.  It’s all downhill from here.

Let me state this frankly: The Hanukah/Christmas/Kwanza and New Years negotiations have consequences that could impact your (sex) life for at least the next six months.

Particularly for college students, the holidays raise myriad questions: If you live in different parts of the country, will there be a visit?  If you didn’t spend Thanksgiving with her, should you spend New Years together?  How many times should you call him over break?  Should you sleep with your ex from high school?

Probably not—unless you want a fast and effective way to regain your single status for spring semester.  Of course, the same end can also be achieved by inept gift-giving—a subscription to Weight Watchers, for example.

And so we come to the landmine that is holiday relationship gift-giving.

While New Years is important for the traditional midnight kiss, Christmas and Hanukah are important for the LOOT involved. Gift selection can alter relationships dramatically—if only by pissing off one or both partners. For men, this is a very easy opportunity to completely disappoint/infuriate/upset her. For women, this is a very easy opportunity to completely scare him/remind him of his mother/scare him.

Because I feel that all Georgetown students should have the right to end their relationship by choice, not because they gave a hideously-unfortunate gift, I have complied the following gift guidelines:

Advice for the Ladies:

Having been raised in the Midwest (where boys are grown with negative style), I used to buy clothes compulsively for every male in my life—under the false pretense that if they wore my gifts, they would suddenly start shopping for similarly fashionable apparel.  Never happened.  I wasted a lot of money and broke up with most of the guys (although I’m still stuck with my dad and brother).  It’s a lost cause.  Get him a cigar instead.

As far as what you’ll be getting (which we all know is more important anyway) … Well, you could take the advice of numerous dating experts and satisfied women and spell it out for him.  That means making a list, containing the name of item, a photo of item, what store to buy item at, which counter has item, what sales girl to talk with about item, where to put the receipt of item, etc.  This way you’ll be happy although probably not that surprised.

Should you choose “romance” over getting what you want, you might end up with a gift, that, ahem, does not fit any woman’s definition of romantic.

My very favorite hellishly-inappropriate gift was from my first serious high school boyfriend—who wrapped up a paperback copy of “All Quiet on the Western Front” one Christmas.  WHAT??  Who gets their girlfriend a book about war that no one even wanted to read even when it was assigned in school?  Five years later, I still harass him about that gift.  The next holiday he got me jewelry.

Advice for the Gentlemen:

Ask her what she wants.  Remember the answer.  Go buy it.

If she says she “doesn’t know,” she’s lying.  She knows.  She wants you to figure it out.  Pretend it’s a game.  Harass her friends.  Guilt trip them into shopping.  Tell them that the happiness of their friend lies entirely in their hands.  Do not mention that your sex life does as well.

If you do all this, you may get the same compliment accorded the ex of my friend Alexandra.  After musing about the best Christmas gift he gave her—“It was just a stocking with nice lotion in it and a funny glow-in-the-dark gag vibrator that you’re not supposed to use but I did … oh, and also” she added almost as an afterthought, “a diamond necklace."

"I wish I was still going out with him to get the gifts," she added.

Because nothing says "Merry Christmas Darling" like a glow-in-the-dark vibrator.