The family strange.
I thought that maybe, since it was Christmas Day and Christmas Day is good for stories, and also because I am feeling predisposed to cheer, that I would share something a little lighter in what can be a heavy, sometimes-stressful, holiday season - especially for people of varying sexualities and genders.
My family had our annual Christmas gathering today, the first in years beyond memory with no presents. We all agreed beforehand for various reasons. The idea was initially my mother's - a rallying cry against the capitalist nation - and then went practical with my sister, who had no money to spend on gifts anyway, and was agreed upon by my very genial father. I, being a fond lover of intangible gifts anyway, of course had no problems at all.
Instead, we kept to our unique, demented family traditions. My mother and father dressed up for each other, like they do every year. And it's so beautiful. My mother will be 55 soon, and she has not dyed her hair or ever gotten Botox, and she is beautiful with the shimmery-gray stiff curls and the way she puts on bright red lipstick and a red Christmas dress, and my father is surprisingly dapper in a suit and tie. I used to be angry at the clothes - blast! traditional gender roles - until I realized it is simply who they are, and that they demand it only of themselves. They dress up, they say, because they like to impress each other, and they make a huge Christmas breakfast that day all dressed up, singing carols and kissing in the kitchen.
There is the Annual Eating of Troubling Family Members, wherein my father inevitably draws the likeness of one disturbing fellow family member in syrup onto a pancake and digests it, thus purging his ire for the new year to come, and the belly dance performed by my sister and her partner for the gathered clan (They were so amazing this year! they keep getting better and better). There is Imaginary Scrabble, played only with made-up words, and then the family bonfire, where we each find something to represent a pain or a hurt from the previous year and then burn it, while we sit around enjoying the warmth and loving each other.
My sister is a butch lesbian; I am my parents' transgendered child. Our celebration encompasses components of pagan and Christian ceremonies, has no gifts, and involves a number of people that keeps growing every year (this year the new additions were two neighbours and my sister's college friend). There is no hate. There is nothing but acceptance and warmth, and as I hear the repeated stories from fellow trans and queer people about the holiday gauntlet, what I have come to realize is that the openness and acceptance of my family is all that anyone could hope for at the end of a long year.
May the gods and goddesses drench you in peace, whether you are in a place of warm acceptance or otherwise.
~ Isa ~
My family had our annual Christmas gathering today, the first in years beyond memory with no presents. We all agreed beforehand for various reasons. The idea was initially my mother's - a rallying cry against the capitalist nation - and then went practical with my sister, who had no money to spend on gifts anyway, and was agreed upon by my very genial father. I, being a fond lover of intangible gifts anyway, of course had no problems at all.
Instead, we kept to our unique, demented family traditions. My mother and father dressed up for each other, like they do every year. And it's so beautiful. My mother will be 55 soon, and she has not dyed her hair or ever gotten Botox, and she is beautiful with the shimmery-gray stiff curls and the way she puts on bright red lipstick and a red Christmas dress, and my father is surprisingly dapper in a suit and tie. I used to be angry at the clothes - blast! traditional gender roles - until I realized it is simply who they are, and that they demand it only of themselves. They dress up, they say, because they like to impress each other, and they make a huge Christmas breakfast that day all dressed up, singing carols and kissing in the kitchen.
There is the Annual Eating of Troubling Family Members, wherein my father inevitably draws the likeness of one disturbing fellow family member in syrup onto a pancake and digests it, thus purging his ire for the new year to come, and the belly dance performed by my sister and her partner for the gathered clan (They were so amazing this year! they keep getting better and better). There is Imaginary Scrabble, played only with made-up words, and then the family bonfire, where we each find something to represent a pain or a hurt from the previous year and then burn it, while we sit around enjoying the warmth and loving each other.
My sister is a butch lesbian; I am my parents' transgendered child. Our celebration encompasses components of pagan and Christian ceremonies, has no gifts, and involves a number of people that keeps growing every year (this year the new additions were two neighbours and my sister's college friend). There is no hate. There is nothing but acceptance and warmth, and as I hear the repeated stories from fellow trans and queer people about the holiday gauntlet, what I have come to realize is that the openness and acceptance of my family is all that anyone could hope for at the end of a long year.
May the gods and goddesses drench you in peace, whether you are in a place of warm acceptance or otherwise.
~ Isa ~