Queer ghosts of Christmas past

christkindlmarket-chicago-christkindlmarket-chicago
Back in 2004 or so, I was probably 15 or thereabouts, and back then I was still staying over and visiting at my dad’s house every weekend or every other weekend. I had my own room in the basement, a computer, the whole works. So yeah, being 15 and testosterone and so on, I’d sometimes just look at a ton of porn. There was this one night where I was looking at stuff on 4chan and I found whatever section had super-femme guys in it, and there was just this wholly uneventful realization of… this works for me. There wasn’t even a moment of anxiety or worry about what it might mean – only the immediate sense of “oh.” It was probably the first time I realized I was some variety of queer.

The next day, we all got on the train to go to downtown Chicago for the Christkindlmarket festival, and the entire day, I was just completely distracted because my world felt like it had been turned upside down. It was fascinating and I was just in awe of this newfound understanding that I could find literally anyone attractive if I wanted. It totally blew my mind and it felt like an incredible shift in perspective and I just stayed in that state of whoa for like a week. It was so liberating.

So yeah, Christmas has always been really strongly associated with the stirrings of queerness for me.

oplatek
One of the traditions at dad’s house was Wigilia. I think they still do it, I just haven’t been back there for the holidays in years. It’s this big Polish dinner for Christmas Eve (with some Kucios elements since we’re Lithuanian too), with pierogi and white fish and mushroom soup, and also herring and sometimes sunflower seed bread and other fun stuff like that. My grandma and grandpa would come out to visit, we’d all open presents that evening, and it was nice

But before we could get to dinner and presents, we had to do… the oplatki. It’s basically a large rectangle, about the size of a tarot card, of the same vaguely edible material used in communion wafers. It ended up being possibly the most passive aggressive Christmas tradition imaginable. How it works is the oldest person takes it first, and offers a piece to everyone around the table, with their wish for them in the new year. Then the second-oldest person offers a piece to everyone around the table, and so on, until everyone’s had a chance to exchange new year wishes with everyone else.

For as long as I can remember, this had devolved into a palpably uncomfortable “airing of grievances” where people would hassle each other for not quitting smoking, or tell each other to get a job, or tell me to get a haircut and do something with my life, and so on. Things between me and my stepmom and her kids had always been uneasy throughout my teen years and I just tried to shrink into the background and ignore anything mean they said. But there was this one year, it must have been 2009 or so, when I had finally come out as a “gay guy” to everyone. And yeah, it wasn’t really the most comfortable identity for me at the time, and I was still in that liminal state where I had yet to figure out that being massively femme actually meant something much different than gay-dude-ness for me. But, back then, that was where things stood.

And while I gritted my teeth during the oplatki, trying not to take it too seriously as I listened to the barely concealed barbs, my older stepsister held out the wafer and I broke off a piece and she told me, “Meet lots of cute boys.”

And it was one of the first times anyone had ever made an overt gesture toward openly including that part of me in family life, and it was all the more surprising because it came from someone I hadn’t always been on good terms with. And as rough as things might have been before, my dad’s side of the family turned out to be the ones who were so, so much more ready to accept me and include me without question. Through everything, to this day.

I love Wigilia, and it’s really important to me.

Back in 2010, I was still living with my family, and also living under the delusion that I was a guy. Heather and I were in the still-just-super-really-good-friends (-who-are-in-love-but-don’t-know-it-yet) phase – we’d yet to meet up, other than just talking online all day and all night. And we decided we totally had to get each other Christmas presents. I think I got her a new translation of The Second Sex (she LOVES books), and she picked out something from my Amazon wishlist. But we told each other not to open it until Christmas, so when I got a package from her (gift-wrapped and all!), I put it under the tree with the rest of my family’s presents.

And then it was Christmas morning and my mom was handing out everyone’s presents, and of course I had to just tear right into Heather’s first, and it was the most beautiful pair of arm-length black satin gloves. I put them on immediately in front of everyone and they were so perfect. I was just so excited! My mom haltingly asked: “…Who are those from?”

“My friend Heather!”

“Oh.”

And I ran off to take selfies in my pajamas to show to Heather:

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Queer ghosts of Christmas past
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