Christmas as an Adult

I guess this could be my first adult Christmas. I say this because this year's holiday feels less like Christmas than ever before. No magic. No whimsy. Just stress and booze and crotchety old bitties to deal with. Christmas Spirit has left the building.

I was talking to my friend Will about this phenomenon last night at his family's Christmas party. He told me he feels the same way about Christmas, that when one becomes an adult, he must learn to find the meaning of Christmas in a different way. It stops being about presents and Santa and magic and wonder. To be quite honest, Christmas is a fucking nightmare most of the time, scrambling to get the right gift, say the right thing so as not to piss off Uncle Winky who was already 3 sheets to the wind before dinner, and hoping to God you can still fit in you svelte new coat after days of feasting on chess squares and egg nog. But I think Will is on to something. He always has been a sharp boy. Christmas is about something else now; it's about getting back in touch with friends and family.

Night before last, I went to Christmas dinner at my best friend from high school Robin's house. We had lamb and corn salad (not very traditional Southern fair) and bottles and bottles of Merlot. Now, I've been knowing Robin for years and I've been going over to her house since I was probably 15, so I know her family well. Her mom, Bonny, is a wonderful woman, but a bit over-bearing, a bit detached. Until she gets some red wine in her. Bonny was all over me hugging me, telling me she loved me, that I'm part of the family, and that she wants me to have my wedding reception in her backyard, no matter if I marry a boy or a girl. It was funny, really, and it was also heart warming. This is what I love about the South: people show their love in the strangest of ways. My daddy will haul wood for the old woman down the road. My momma will sit with old people in the hospital as they die, no matter how distantly related. My best friend's mom will decorate her arbor with roses and twinkle lights so I can say "I do" under it. It's wonderful.

Last night at Will's parent's party, I had a good, long discussion with his mom, Sue, about politics. She told me she was on the planning commission for 11 years (there's a story right there!) and in her time she saw how corrupt those politicians were. She told me they all took bribes under the table. When back in 1994 some Canadian company was going to build a medical waste disposal facility in the soybean field beside Walls and Sacred Heart Elementary schools, she got a permit to protest, and marched from Walls all the way to the courthouse in Hernando. The Canadian company pulled out and Sue Freiman was a hero, at least until the next election.

I love knowing that story. I wouldn't have been privy to that information as a teenager. But there sat Sue and I by the fire, me with my beer, her with her glass of Preseco, talking about the ways of the world. And I really enjoyed it.

So maybe that's what Christmas as an adult is all about.

Christmas in Dixie

I have too little bandwidth to upload my photos (as I borrow wireless from the neighbors when I'm back in Mississip), so rest assured that I will blog about New York very soon. As soon as I can post my photos, too. Until then, I'll share with you some struggles young people face at holiday celebrations with the extended family down South. Here we go.

My 18-year-old cousin is four months pregnant. She attends community college and works as a waitress at a restaurant in town. She has a boyfriend, he's 20, and he's a nice boy. She brought him to meet the family yesterday. While my family members were wonderfully nice to them, my aunt (the old bitty) kept working in passive aggressive commentary about "marriage," "gainful employment," and "the costs of raising a child." For my aunt, my cousin has two options in her current situation: marry the boy who knocked her up or "get rid" of the baby. What a dismally closed-minded set of imperatives.

I don't see what the big deal is. So, she's young, and pregnant, and unmarried. She doesn't even want to marry the boy. That doesn't make her a bad person. A baby sort of slipped up on her? Well, at least we all know she's human now, and human beings often experience blessings conveniently disguised as "mistakes" at the time. This baby is a gift, and s/he will be loved. That's what matters, right? A dozen more horrible things could have happened. She could have killed someone in a drinking and driving accident. She could have joined a terrorist cell. Or (hang with me for this one--I'll explain) she could be a lesbian. I think the whole family should just give her a break and support her. Sheesh.

Now, of course I have no problem with lesbians. Hell, I love them, because I love everyone. But my family--not mom and dad and step dad and brother, but those various aunts, uncles, and cousins who don't know me--can't handle the homosexuality. What I mean by that is they LOVE that there are gay family members, only because they have some pariah to constantly judged their morality against. So what if Hunter is in jail for drug paraphernalia and DUI again, at least he's not gay! It's sickening, really. Compound this with the fact that I'm the gay family member, and a handful of cousins my age have gotten married and are having babies. More power to them. Marriage and babies are events to celebrate. They seem fairly innocuous topics of conversation. Until busy body aunts and my dear, sweet, misguided grandmother turn the discussion on me: "Timmy, when are you gonna bring a girl home for us to meet? I know you will one day. You ain't a queer. I won't ever believe it."

Yep, that's what my grandmother says to be, nearly every time I see her. And I know she's not being mean. She's just concerned about me, because she doesn't know what a gay relationship or life look like. I think it's hard for her to love someone so much (I'm her favorite) and not know how to understand him because his life is so different from what she knows (my grandmother has been married since she was 14). I'm good at just shaking my head and changing the subject. But I wish the extended family would except the fact that I'm not going to bring home some pretty little girl, marry her, have babies, and live in a double wide on the 40-acres in Cedar View where all the other aunts, uncles, cousins live.

Don't get me wrong. I love my grandmother. I know she loves me. She's helped me out in a lot of situations, and I know I can call her for help any time. I also remember to call her and just chat with her a couple times a month, because I know she's old and lonely and a 10 minute phone call from her grandson makes her day. It makes my day, too. So I can look past her grumbling with my sexuality. She really just doesn't understand. So, this Christmas, as I'm sure will be the case in every holiday celebration for the rest of her life, I will smile, nod, and change the subject each time it rolls back around to marriage and babies. Then I'll go to the shop to drink beer and whiskey with the men of the family while the women discuss me. It's fine, though. When they're talking about me, at least they're giving someone else a break.