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Romantic love that arises between two elderly or senior characters. If mortality or mental illness is a theme, this is a sure recipe for tear jerkers aplenty. However, it can also be used optimistically, as proof that there's no age limit on love. In that case, it frequently turns into a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Compare May-December Romance and Grow Old with Me. Often overlaps with New Old Flame, if the two characters were lovers earlier in life but quarrelled or grew apart. The opposite of Toy Ship, in which two unusually young characters have a romance—although in the New Old Flame case, the same pair of characters may have been both.
Definitely a case of Truth in Television, as many people do remarry or have long term relationships that begin very late in life.
Examples of December-December Romance include:
Anime and Manga[]
- An episode of Sailor Moon Super S features a snippy but secretly kind old woman named Mayako, who strikes an Intergenerational Friendship with Chibi-Usa and Mamoru. It turns out that the reason why she looks so bitter is that she lost her old boyfriend twenty years ago, which made her a borderline Broken Bird. Said boyfriend, the famous Supreme Chef Ichiro Ohno, returns into her life towards the end of the episode (after Mayako is saved from Hawk Eye by the Senshi) and apologies to her for the hurt he caused her, and they get together again and open a restaurant - like they had sworn to do many years ago.
Comic Books[]
- Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson Sr in Spider-Man.
- Chief and the title character's mother in Doug Ten Napel's Earthboy Jacobus, which actually gets more focus than the title character's romance.
Film - Animated[]
- In The Swan Princess there's Queen Uberta and Lord Rogers. There's also some hints at Queen Uberta/King William but King William goes and dies.
Film - Live-Action[]
- In The Princess Diaries 2 (the Disney film, not the books), Joe the chauffeur falls in love with the dowager queen. Their dialogue suggests that they've had some UST for quite a while, but are only now admitting it... ...and they finally decide to get married in the end.
- Grumpier Old Men, the sequel to Grumpy Old Men, has Grandpa Gustafson having a romance (in his own way) with Mama Ragetti, the mother of Maria Ragetti. When God finally remembers him, Mama is among the mourners at the funeral, and tosses a flower into the grave with him.
- Something's Gotta Give has Jack Nicholson's character opposite Keanu Reeves's, competing for the affections of the beautiful older woman played by Diane Keaton. Even worse/better, she's the Hot Mom of his last girlfriend's.
- Arguably Ivan Simanov and Victoria in RED (film). They're well into their sixties and clearly enamoured of each other, which qualifies them. The only possible exclusion criterion is that they were originally lovers as young adults before their jobs - and the fact that they were on opposite sides of the Cold War!!! - separated them. December/December rekindling, perhaps?
- Guillaume Blerot and the Widow Audel in Chocolat.
Literature[]
- In Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, the delivery of a letter results in two childhood sweethearts, now elderly and widowed, getting married after all.
- Also seen with Mr. Weavall in A Hat Full of Sky.
- Paul and Elaine in The Green Mile.
- Eleni Cooper and Sir Myles in the Song of the Lioness quartet. Very sweetly portrayed.
- In the Circle of Magic books, Sandry ships her great-uncle with a woman his age.
- In Memory, Lady Alys Vorpatril and Simon Illyan get together after Illyan's medically forced retirement. (Not sure how old they are exactly, but Lady Alys is a widow with a thirty-year-old son.) At some point in the series, it's also mentioned that Miles' Betan grandmother is in a similar relationship.
- In the Jeeves and Wooster story "Indian Summer of an Uncle", Bertie's Uncle George has an "indian summer" and goes after a girl much younger than himself. Then he meets the girl's aunt, who turns out to be the lost love of his younger days, and marries her instead.
- The Westing Game: Otis Amber and Crow.
Live-Action TV[]
- Happened on Golden Girls when Sophia fell in love with a man she met on the boardwalk. Sadly, it was hinted at during the episode and revealed at the end that he had Alzheimer's, so they had to cut it short because he was going to be put in a home.
- In another episode she falls in love with her late best friend's husband. They get married but realize it won't work out between them so they decide to become seperated.
- Britcom As Time Goes By - young lovers, a soldier and a nurse, lose contact when he's shipped off to the Korean War. They're re-united in their golden years. Counts as both a case of this trope and Grow Old with Me.
- Happened with a couple of guest characters (both widowed) on Good Times. It was mentioned that as a married couple they could get more from social security than if they were single.
- Happens to Karen McCluskey in the 6th season of Desperate Housewives.
- Admiral Adama and President Roslin in the remake of Battlestar Galactica. Also Fire-Forged Friends, since they did not get along well at first. Hell, he even deposed her once. (And re-posed[sic] her another time.)
- Tom and Diana in Waiting for God.
- May not be exactly applicable, but Katharine in Stargate SG-1 did get to reunite with her fiancee Ernest who disappeared during an experiment with the Stargate a good fifty years before when both were in their seventies.
- Elka in Hot in Cleveland has multiple romantic interests just in the first season.
- In Community Pierce and Shirley are the oldest members of the study group, and through out the first season Pierce tries several times to hit on her.
- Mr. Feeny and Dean Bolander in Boy Meets World (played, incidentally, by husband and wife William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett).
- Major Garreau and Sergeant Pepper in China Beach with a bit of an eventual tearjerker implied late in the last season when it's mentioned that Sarge has had/has cancer and may not be long for this world.
- Gaius and Alice on Merlin (even though they had met, nearly married, and broken up prior to the episode, it was still a late-in-life relationship).
- Silver Foxes Agent Gibbs and Dr. Ryan on NCIS.
Newspaper Comics[]
- Happens to Grandpa Jim in For Better or For Worse
- Gran and Peter Kiesl in 9 Chickweed Lane — though this was a rekindling of a romance they had a half-century earlier.
Video Games[]
- During the "The Book of Love" quest in Skyrim you play the role of matchmaker while observing different kinds of love. At one point, you are tasked with pairing up the fairly old court mage (who might be really old since he's an Altmer) and the Jarl's Housecarl, who looks like she's in her fifties. The priestess of Mara questgiver describes this as a "seasoned" love.
Western Animation[]
- Grandpa has had these a couple of times on The Simpsons. In one case, Marge tried to hook him up with her widowed mother (then Mr Burns came along). In another, he dated a woman who lived in the same old folks home who died and left him a large sum of money.
- Rugrats has one with Grandpa Lou and Lulu. They even got married.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: While never shown onscreen, it is implied that such is the case between Kanna and Pakku, who do marry.
- Even more! They were in an Arranged Marriage when younger, but Kanna ran away from the Northern Water Tribe since she didn't want to be burdened by their traditions. Pakku was so hurt that he grew into an embittered Straw Misogynist, until he met Plucky Girl Katara — Kanna's granddaughter. So it's a mix of this and New Old Flame, strictly speaking.
- Wanda's dad and Cosmo's mother in The Fairly OddParents.