With Thanksgiving and its marshmallow-decked sweet potatoes now a dim and distant memory, the holiday’s second cousin, Christmas, is a soon-to-be-realized dream. But have you ever found yourself surrounded by festive cheer only to be haunted by the ghosts of relationships past, present or future?

While you’re pulling crackers around the table, pulling faces at your dad’s sh*t jokes or “pulling” — the British word for making out — some drunk “babe” under the mistletoe, there’s always a few uninvited poltergeists that pick their moments to get a slice of the pie.

It doesn’t just happen to the young pups. There’s a reason why your last remaining granny cries into her Christmas cornflakes. She’s got a transparent version of old grandpa Bob sitting next to her, reminding her of what Christmas used to be like.

OK, so you’re 19 years old and not even bothered to make a pipe dream about a golden wedding anniversary. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have relationship ghosts. Annual events have a canny ability of reminding us about what we used to have, don’t have or wish we had relationship-wise.

It’s just not the crap you want to think about when Santa’s stuck in your chimney trying desperately to deliver the new iPhone 5.

I’ll never forget my first boyfriend, Euan Hair, a strapping young man who was well out of my league. On Christmas Eve, I crept upstairs to use all my prepaid phone credit to fill his ears with romantic drivel.

I should have spared my sneaky mom the trip up the stairs to listen through the door. A year later and thoroughly dumped by my “future husband,” the pain was raw. With Cat Stevens’ sentiment that “the first cut is the deepest” proving accurate, I was emotionally bleeding all over my presents, dreaming of yesteryear.

Now that I’m a 20-something, I’d like to think I’m educated enough to never return to such pathetic depths of despair. Unfortunately, everyone’s a fool when it comes to lost love. I imagine every student’s equivalent of Euan Hair will be doing the Christmas rounds for years to come, until he or she finds a present-tense replacement.

But sometimes, current relationships can’t save Christmas. If you are stupid enough to date someone from a different country, get ready to date a ghost every Christmas until you actually get married, or the modern living-together-in-financial-insecurity equivalent.

There’s also a reason why January is prime divorce season. While not everyone is in a long-distance relationship, busy semesters can make together time a luxury product. But with the calendar cleared and no sex allowed in your parents’ house, you find yourself talking to the love of your life about the weather forecast.

This houseguest, known as the ghost of relationships present, is the awkward moment when you realize you’ve let your relationship slide so fast that you’re not actually sure who you’re dating. You wonder why you’ve bothered to Skype religiously or be exclusive for the entire fall semester when you could have been “doing” the Shaw Hall slag.

Finally, just to turn the gravy really sour, your dear grandpa Bill invites the ghost of relationships future to the Christmas dinner table by asking why you still don’t have a boyfriend. Then your little sister, thinking she’s hilarious, buys you a “build your own boyfriend” Play-Doh kit to make you feel even uglier.

My advice? Enjoy finals week. You’ll be spending serious time with some unwelcome ghostly guests before you know it. And I’m not talking about your aunty Geraldine who spits when she speaks.

Bah, humbug.

Iona Holloway is a magazine journalism and psychology dual major. She thinks everyone should just give up and date Casper. Email her at ijhollow@syr.edu. Follow her @ionaholloway.

Published on November 28, 2012 at 12:08 am