Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Honda days (my dad was a used car salesman), and a very happy end of December to everyone.
Today I am giving you this free story, originally published last year in Gay Apparel, an anthology edited by Rachel Sharp. This anthology is not available for purchase on any website. Rather, each author chose a charity, and if you give us proof of a donation of any amount to our charity of choice, we give you the e-book.
I'm giving my story out for free this year because I think it's cute and I want people to read it. But I also hope it will leave a few of you wanting more LGBTQIA holiday stories.
My charity of choice is The Autistic Self Advocacy Network: https://autisticadvocacy.org/
Officially, I am not autistic. But officially, testing is biased against people, especially people raised as girls, who cannot "prove" they were autistic as children. My school didn't test me, they didn't keep records. I strongly believe I am autistic, so do a lot of people who know me, including mental health professionals. And a lot of autistic charities aren't actually trying to help us, they are trying to make us "normal," so we don't bother people by existing.
ASAN is actually run by autistic people, and they want us to thrive as we are, not just fit in and be "normal."
So if you want to read the rest of the book, donate to my charity and send me a screenshot, or find one of the other authors and do the same for their charity (some of them can be found on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49151840-gay-apparel).
I hope you enjoy my queer little Christmas story.
(content warnings: homophobia and transphobia mentioned)
Another Unnecessary Reimagining of A Christmas Carol (Except This One‘s Queer)
Jennifer Lee Rossman
Try as I might, I can’t get my boss to make me work on Christmas. Says the holidays are for family. Tradition.
Tradition. Right. Snow-dusted garlands of greenery, red bows, gas lamps and gas lighting and horse-drawn carriages and my great aunt asking if I’m still a lesbian (yes).
So on Christmas Eve, I’m one of 37 billion people storming the mall for that last cable knit sweater, that hot new toy that will be collecting dust in a month. I try to avoid the incessant bell ringers with the red kettles, but people look down on you when you don’t give to the poor. Even if their charity discriminates.
Societal pressure forces my spare change into that kettle. Every clank echoes in my mind.
When I get home, I collapse into bed.
Look, I’m going to spare you the explanation of the three time-traveling ghosts. This story has been told so many times, by Muppets and Flintstones and Doctor Who (but not the pretty girl one). You know the deal.
***
The first ghost… Not gonna lie, he looks like Freddie Mercury. He takes me to my childhood, back when “gay apparel“ meant velvet dresses and uncomfortable shoes, not denim and flannel.
Dad stressing about the turkey being dry, mom stressing that the angel isn’t straight enough (she was straighter than me, mom). Everything must be perfect. The house must look like a Thomas Kincaid painting. If anything is remotely wrong, everything is ruined.
And this is the Christmas my sister ruined it all. Of course, we were still calling her my brother back then.
Some of my family still does (yay, tradition).
***
Ghost number two. The present. Sort of looks like a Cher drag queen. Gotta love my imagination.
My childhood home. The turkey is still dry, but dad isn’t around to care so everyone else has to worry about it for him. The angel still isn’t straight (she’ll never be straight, mom). Grandma and my great aunt Lydia take down my sister‘s stocking and put up the one from when we were kids. The one with her deadname on it.
Because tradition. I guess.
***
And finally, the future. The third ghost should be wearing a mysterious cloak, but she looks like Wanda Sykes, because screw tradition.
I’m hosting my first Christmas in my new house. My wife―mom still calls her my roommate, but she didn’t come to our wedding, so maybe she didn’t realize were married―is in charge of stressing about the dry turkey. I’m the one trying to straighten out the angel (conversion therapy didn’t work on me, but I guess it’s worth a shot) because everything has to be perfect.
Traditional.
I would have put my sister‘s new stocking up, the one with her real name on it, but she doesn’t come around anymore. It was something my mom said years back that I didn’t call her out on, because I didn’t want to shake the snow globe and have glitter fall on our attempt at a perfect Christmas, as described by Charles Dickens (more like Charles Dickhead).
Why are we letting some dead white guy tell us what a perfect Christmas looks like, anyway?
***
Christmas morning. For real this time.
I get out of bed, throw on my gayest apparel. I’m talking Chuck Taylors, cuffed jeans, and a flannel jacket over a shirt that says “ho ho homo.”
I hop in my Subaru, drive down to the nearest LGBT youth center, and give them everything I can spare. Then I go to the deli, get some turkey sandwiches (nice and juicy). I don’t know where to get a gay angel on such short notice, so I go to Kinko’s and print out a picture of Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. It might not be perfect, but it’s going to be good enough.
Then I head to my sister’s to make some new traditions.
I love this ending.
ReplyDelete