Keeping Kink Alive During Your Vanilla Holiday

The holidays are nearly here, and one of the weirdest issues we deal with all year long is upon us. Visiting family and hiding our kink.

It’s not exactly the worst problem to have. Truly, it’s a kinky first-world problem. But for several hours a day and several days over a two week period, we’ll have little time to hide away and be kinky, have private conversations (minus the kids, I mean), and to simply be Daddy and babygirl.

Either his family will be here with us or we’ll be away visiting mine, but for the next couple of weeks, the only D/s connection we’ll get through the day will be snatched at in those rare private moments when some parent or aunt or cousin isn’t focusing on one or more of us.

I’ll call him by his first name, and it will feel weird on my tongue. He’ll call me by my first name, and it’ll sound foreign to my ears. We will probably get a little cranky and edgy before the visiting is done, desperate to be back in our own home and our own little world again.

I promise I’m only complaining a little. Spending time with my family means there are people who want to watch two rambunctious kids so we can go out on a date or cook my favorite foods that I wait all year long to eat.

It also means someone will try to rope me into a political conversation, and I won’t be allowed to pout, stomp my feet, or babygirl my way out of it. It’s time to put on the big girl panties and wear the vanilla armor I’m known for.

For a chunk of time, the vulnerable side has to be hidden from the world. I’ll be the wise-cracking, smart ass who takes no shit and will go toe to toe with nearly anyone on almost any issue. It’s exhilarating but not a place I want to live in permanently.

When we get back, we’ll both be exhausted.

And we’ll need to reconnect.

There’s no way to get away from the demands of the vanilla world, and at the holidays, they seem to grow. The only way to survive it is to snatch those precious moments we can manage to be alone – difficult with family gatherings, late nights talking, and all the plans my mother has been making for six months anticipating our visit – and make plans to get our kink on the first night we can be alone in our own bed again.

Based on last year’s crazy holiday season, I’ve learned a few lessons for how to survive it this year.

1. Use those few moments behind closed doors to be your most submissive (or Dominant) self with each other.
2. Feel free to daydream about what you want to do with each other when you’re alone again. Be prepared for someone to say, “Are you even paying attention?” knowing you can’t tell them what you were really thinking about.
3. When you’re offered the room furthest away from everyone else’s bedroom, take it! Hotels are always best but not always an option.
4. Be extra lovey in a vanilla way – yes, even when the fam is watching. I hug John Brownstone a lot and hold his hand as much as possible. It’s not kinky, but it’s a connection – and one that won’t make my mother consider calling the police.
5. Plan your epic return to kink. This won’t last forever, and we all know it. Go ahead and start planning your first night alone.
6. Sext the hell out of each other. As long as no one in your family is the type to read over your shoulder, they don’t need to know who you’re talking to or what filthy, kinky things you’re saying to each other.
7. Dominants – choose your submissive’s clothing each day. Submissive’s – feel free to ask if you should wear certain things or ask for direction when you’re packing. John Brownstone picks a lot of my clothes when I pack for a trip and then chooses my clothing each day. It’s a way to feel submissive when all other routines are thrown out the window.

I love my family, and don’t mind the visit, but after spending most of the year living in our little kinky bubble where we’ve developed ways to express our D/s in ways the kids don’t catch, it’s disconcerting to switch gears and settle into a more vanilla mode together. The trip will be good, but when we get back, the kinky recovery will be better.