This year there’s a confluence of holidays. You may be winding down your Hanukkah celebrations or just about to tear open Christmas presents. Wiccan Yule just passed on Winter Solstice, Dec. 21. Kwanzaa begins Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 1. Then the Russians wrap the whole thing up on Jan 7 with Orthodox Christmas. What connects them all? The gay holy trinity, of course: parties, shopping and decorations. There’s an irony in such disparate traditions united under a great gay party tent.
Before she passed away, I used to invite my mother out from Connecticut for the holidays. I’d throw a party, of course. Everyone was invited. I have a harpsichord in the living room so, to add to the evening’s elegance, I also invited a serious early music-obsessed musician to perform. She settled in and, with all the gravitas of historically informed performance, began to play. In that moment I discovered 17th-century Christmas harpsichord music is not “party” music. In fact, they celebrated rather piously back then, excruciatingly piously. My guests listened politely. I’m sure they enjoyed it, briefly. Then my mom took over the keyboard. A big band singer in the 1940s and a wonderful pianist, she was at first perplexed at the harpsichord’s lack of pedals but she carried on regardless. Her renditions of carols, show tunes and standards brought the house down. Sipping red zin’, my 70-something mom played ’til 2 a.m. It was as joyous a holiday celebration as there could have been, with, as the old Irish carol goes, “all of the folks at home.”
That wasn’t so long ago, a decade and a half at best. Those were the days when “folks,” the LGBT family, meant all those sundry displaced characters, which, in their mutual diaspora, came together by default. Times have certainly changed. I recently overheard an acquaintance’s parents as they gushed their regrets that their son and his boyfriend would spend the holidays with the boyfriend’s family. They understood, of course. After all, other guy’s parents live out of state. But, next time, they insisted, the boys would stay with them. To me it was a scene worthy of a parody Norman Rockwell painting. Yet, despite all the seemingly saccharine sentiment, it was genuine.
Then, social media brings back the reality. Change is gradual. I just read a post that burst the bubble of the accepting family embracing their LGBT children and their relationships. A recently married gay friend wrote, “We won’t be able to see my husband’s nieces and nephews anymore.” It seems that even on the eve of the highest of universal family holidays, the essential sense of it all can still be trumped by ignorance and prejudice.
For now, it’s time to set the table for the next party. Hopefully, all of the folks, including the nieces and nephews, will be at home. May Good Will and Peace on Earth prevail for you and yours. Happy Holidays!
