Being pregnant during Christmas isn’t the best.
If you’re heavily pregnant, you’ll likely spend the day running away from the encroaching bump-stroking hands of touchy-feely members of the family, and repeatedly telling people that no, you haven’t felt any contractions yet. Joy.
If you’re in the early stages of pregnancy, you may be worried about how you’re going to keep the pregnancy secret at alcohol-fueled social engagement after alcohol-fueled social engagement.
Fear not, you don’t have to give away your secret until you feel ready. It’s possible to keep a pregnancy hidden over the holidays, you just need to channel your inner Oscar winner to deliver the performance of a lifetime.
Here are five genius ways to hide the fact you’re not drinking over Christmas:
#1: Be Hungover
This is the easiest excuse of all. Once you reach a certain age, you can totally get away with refusing to drink with a hangover. Long gone are the days of weekend-long binges and stumbling from party to party, these days you can suffer a week-long hangover just from sniffing a glass of wine. Aging sucks, but it does have some benefits. Now you have a perfectly valid excuse for not wanting to get drunk.
You already have the grey nausea-induced glow, the sweats and the hypersensitive gag reflex of a hungover person, so you won’t need to worry too much about being convincing. Pregnancy feels a lot like a hangover anyway for the first trimester, so just don’t try to hide your symptoms and everyone will believe you were totally wasted last night.
#2: Be The Designated Driver
If you can drive, you have a get out of jail free card when it comes to drinking. You can easily wear the hat of the designated driver and pass up any opportunities to drink alcohol. You’ll still get to have fun with your friends, and you’ll have a good excuse as to why you’re not drinking.
Say you can’t afford a taxi, need to be fresh in the morning or have to pick your spouse up on the way home, there are plenty of reasons why you might decide to drive on a night out. If you offer your friends a lift home, they’ll just be thrilled they don’t have to fork out for a taxi.
#3: Be Infected
If you’re suffering from a urinary tract infection (UTI), drinking alcohol can make it worse. If you’ve ever had a UTI, you’ll know why you wouldn’t want to do anything that could risk making it worse. Urinary tract infections are not pleasant, they can be painful, frustrating and downright inconvenient. It’s definitely not something you’d want to suffer with on Christmas Day, so your colleagues will understand why you’re passing up the free booze at the Christmas party.
Luckily, the story will seem believable because you’ll be going to the bathroom to pee approximately every eight minutes. All. Night. Long.
#4: Be Trying For A Baby
If you’re out with close friends, you could say you’ve cut out alcohol because you’re trying for a baby. Experts advise couples cut out smoking, alcohol and stress when trying to conceive, so you could say you’re doing that. This does mean everyone will be anticipating a pregnancy announcement, but that doesn’t really matter when you’re already pregnant.
#5: Be Deceiving
You don’t have to tell people you’re not drinking. As long as you buy your own drinks out of earshot of your party, you can drink whatever you like and simply pretend it’s alcohol. Fruit virgin cocktails could easily pass for alcoholic ones. Soft drinks and juices look the same whether they have spirits mixed in or not.
Drink slowly so you don’t have to drink too many drinks (or you’ll spend the whole evening on the toilet), and you should be able to get away with it. As your friends get drunk, they won’t even be paying attention to what you’re drinking anyway. Act merry and everyone will think you’ve had just as much to drink as they have. Plus, when pregnancy fatigue forces you to fall asleep at the bar it will be even more convincing that you’ve had one too many.
See BellyBelly’s 10 delicious mocktail suggestions here.
How are you planning to hide the fact you’re not drinking this Christmas?
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Christmas just won’t be the same if you’re pregnant. Of course, there are benefits, you’ll skip the nasty hangovers for a start. And you’ll also get to enjoy the excitement of knowing that next Christmas there will be a baby’s stocking hung by the fireplace. It’s still not the best though, check out BellyBelly’s article of 10 Reasons Why Christmas Sucks When You’re Pregnant.
