Dating is always a challenge at first. The first kiss, holding hands, sweating palms or worse. Everyone shares these common anxieties, wanting to look their best and put their best foot forward.
In any relationship, the couple goes through a number of mile markers on the way to something more serious than the casual date. In a recent survey, 100 men and 100 women were asked to name their top 3 milestone that they considered marked a turning point in the relationship toward something more serious than a casual encounter. As you can imagine, there were lots of varied answers from "he gave me a particular look, a look I can't describe but that I recognized as, 'I'm into you'" to "she put her hand on my leg and squeezed not out of intention to create an effect on me, but because she really wanted me right then." There are lots of "signs" along the way. After all the answers had been given, the same focus group was asked to name an object way before a wedding ring, some object that indicated they were a couple. Articles of jewelry, an expensive coat, numerous ideas were thrown out there, but one of the most common answers was we shared Christmas together. Sharing a Christmas tree as a couple appears to be an incredibly intimate thing. It says, "I want you in my life". Many couples ornaments can be personalized to commemorate the budding, growing romance between two people. Like a promise ring to a teenager, couples Christmas ornaments are something given and shared equally between each partner. One lady said that one of the hardest things she had to do was to part with the ornaments they'd bought together. There were numerous indications that, ornament shopping as a couple acted as a postulate toward the future, a mutual agreement of caring for each other as individuals, sharing life's experiences in an exciting "now" and an uncertain but committed future to come.
