Dear Queer ~ Help! How to Survive the Holidays

Gayly Giving Advice Straight from the Heart ~ December 2024

Buy me a coffee for Christmas here.

Dear Queer,

Girl, I hate the holidays. Everywhere I go, it screams family that I don’t have. To make matters worse, my partner would be a Christmas elf if he could. Their family celebrates to the nines. I feel like a stray taken in by well-meaning humans when I’m more comfortable on the streets. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but girl, I don’t know if I can rally this year. Please help me, Dear Queer.

-Damion

Hey Damion,

As someone who has an incredibly complicated relationship with the holidays, I wholeheartedly hear you. It can be an excruciatingly painful time for those of us who don’t have family, are not Christian, or can’t afford the demands of celebrating- be it financial constraints, physical, or otherwise. And when your closest person experiences the holidays joyfully? Forget about it. You might as well be on different planets.

So many traditions we blindly carry on today have terrible roots. A big part of the angst for many of us holiday outsiders is we don’t feel aligned with these. My daughter was born on the Winter Solstice, which is the holy day that inspired Christmas for Christians. For her birthday, I wrote a short children’s story that embodies the spiritual teaching of Solstice in a kid-friendly manner.