O Christmas. Seriously?
I know it isn’t really Christmas’ fault but I have to say “Christmas? Seriously?” I went to my local mall last week and even before children could come down from their post-Halloween sugar high, the Christmas decorations were up all over the place. Christmas ads promoting crazy store hours are already taking over television time. I am already fed up with Christmas music and have only heard about 16 bars of it but that is 16 bars too many before the leaves have all fallen off the trees. I do not like the over commercialization of Christmas; perhaps it’s the flashbacks to childhood of wish lists unfulfilled (to be fair, I got what I asked for just not the EXACT model and that caused a tantrum and a very unjolly holiday). Even though I don’t appreciate how Christmas is stealing Thanksgiving’s thunder, it may be a blessing in disguise for American lesbians.
Thanksgiving seems to be a big holiday for coming out—maybe it’s the tryptophan in the turkey that weakens our defenses, maybe it’s the over zealous cheering during football games that makes us feel the need to blurt out I’M GAY while turkey and all the fixins are passed around the table where extended family has gathered. It may seem like a good idea to come out to everyone all at once; it’s efficient really and neatly prevents a family game of telephone where you give up control over who finds out you are gay and when. My younger brother took my gayness and ran with it, deflecting attention away from his bisexuality in the process.
Fortunately for me, Thanksgiving in my family is spent preventing my father from eating the desserts he brought and anything else sugar- based. (How the man is not diabetic and over 300 pounds is a medical mystery.) Even though my family knows my orientation, I have a feeling Thanksgiving is sort of like the Alzheimer’s of holidays. It is the holiday when—somewhere after the second helping of stuffing and someone announcing they have just loosened their belt and unzipped their pants, just a little—that the wheels can come off this holiday train. If I decide to go to Thanksgiving this year I think I just may make a t-shirt with all the responses to questions that the family will invariably ask or bite their tongues off to refrain from asking. Because, you know, I’m all about being helpful.
The shirt will look something like this: NO, it is not a phase.
You already have grandchildren.No, she’s not my roommate to “help with the bills.”Of course I want to marry her—she is smoking hot  and a doctor.
Yes I can marry her; I live in Connecticut.
Why the hell didn’t you all tell me? Seriously, you saw my yearbook photo and you watched me grow up. Why was I the last in the family to know?
This Thanksgiving I will most likely stay home (thank you, Miss Pacemaker). It’s a long drive and I just can’t count on crazy Uncle Alan to be just crazy enough.
Oh, and if you have any ideas to add to the t-shirt, please submit them below. After all, Christmas is just around the corner.
Original message from Grace Rooney here…