No Place Like Home for the Holidays?

The lesbian music group, Venus Envy, does a song, “Jeanette Isabella” (sung to the tune of the Christmas carol). It details almost everything that can go wrong when an adult lesbian and her partner make a holiday visit home. The lyrics cover situations ranging from fighting with parents about sleeping arrangements, to Jeanette’s lover beating her dad in a game of football, to a disapproving priest in the family.

Of course, some of you are probably lucky enough to hail from families that are completely accepting of your sexual orientation. And others of you probably have the misfortune to come from families that are completely hateful and rejecting.

The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle. Our families love us. They haven’t disowned us, and they haven’t sent us off to reorientation therapy, but they don’t know quite what to do about the “L” thing.

Or maybe, they’re still pretending they don’t know about the “L” thing. In many families, the news that one family member is gay or lesbian is the most open secret since J. Edgar Hoover’s dress-size, a mini-version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

All this, of course, can make for some tense visits home during the holiday season. This article offers a few ideas to take some of the pressure off you and your family during visits home.

Don’t come out to your family during the holiday season. Yes, I know, I’m usually the one begging people to come out of the closet. But the timing during the holidays is far from ideal. Unlike the television specials might suggest, the holidays are often a time of high stress. If your mother is worried about basting the turkey, making the stuffing, not breaking her heirloom China, and getting her mother back to the nursing home by six o’clock, she probably won’t have the time or energy to deal with your disclosure, and you’ll both end up hurt and angry.

Make plans in far advance, especially if you want to bring your partner. Let your family know that you’d like to be home for the holidays and that you’d like to bring your significant other. (If you’re not out to them, you can say something like, “I’d like to bring my roommate.”) If they refuse, you’ll have some time to decide if you want to go home on your own, or if you want to spend the holidays with your partner.

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