Holiday Togetherness

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Thanksgiving this year followed by mother's birthday dinner on Saturday would have meant visiting out-of-state on Wed., Thurs. Fri. Sat. and Sun.

I said, no, thank you, but I'll be there on Saturday. My sister AGREED with me, *LOL*.

Visiting relatives are like fish; after being around for three days they really start to stink.

I hear the straight bars are filled to capacity on Wednesday night the day before Thanksgiving. In my area, the gay bars are jammed on Friday night. We've all had to endure (blood/genetic/adoptive) family, you see, the day before.

I do kind of miss the holdiays of olden days when there were two languges flowing, ethnic music playing and the grandparents were alive. *SIGH*
 
I always had more fun

And was "taken home"more at the straight bars anyway.. The best were always hotel bars.. In this area the Gay Bars are always full of people trying to be someone else. (or wishing they were)
 
oh my paws ands whiskers, Mac, yes

back in the late seventies, early eighties a historic hotel in Fort Collins had one night a month for us in their bar, the rest of the month was absolutely not for us.

First time, a couple of guys were beat up pretty bad on their way out of the bar.
One month later, several UofWyo football players who'd come down extra for the fun of trashing gays didn't play in Laramie's games the rest of that season - every gay in the city had got on the horn to every gay rancher and every biker dyke down to Pueblo, up to Sheridan and over to SLC.

They were waiting for the bashers.

From the third month on to the end, it was a pleasant, dignified, wonderful evening where guys could slow dance with other guys, women could discuss the best way to replace clutch cables on Suzuki GS1100s (notorious problem at that time for the "in" bike of the crowd) and the hotel bar made money like mad.

Those guys and gals were real people. I doubt 90% of them would have felt comfortable or even been wanted in a typical gay bar today...even when I was single, I avoided them like the plague.

From what I got to see in Denver a few months ago, nothing has changed.
When I was in college, and wanted to pick up guys, the type of real men I liked (and like) didn't hang out in gay bars. Still don't. Queenly cliques are to being gay like learning how to change diapers with one hand are to being straight...doesn't mean you have to volunteer for it.
Besides, your chances are much, much better...
 
Well we survived.
Only family I saw was my brother, but that was after TGD. My brother is in the hospital, they think it's a kidney stone. We should hear more today.

We went to a resturant, best $32 I have ever spent. Still brought home leftovers and no family to deal with, no cooking and no clean up.

I got the yard totally cleaned up, worked at the Nights of Columbus Christmas Tree lot and got to watch the neighbors get busted for counterfitting.

Glad to be back to work today.
 
Not much has changed here over the years either.

Now the Spanish bars are the most fun.. anything goes with them.. Have even had wives "watch" to make sure hubby goes with a man and not a girl. That way he is not cheating on her. God Bless em..
 
I've read all your posts with great interest! Thanks to you all, I am going to send up prayers of thanks for my boring, charming, wonderful family!! Apparently, our level of dysfunction is set on simmer. LOL Best wishes to everyone for a drama-free Christmas holiday.
 
westingman123

You are a very, very lucky man.

When I was a kid, we had family dinners at which some relations only spoke Italian, others only German, others English (more or less, Aunt Catherine from Glasgow may have been speaking English, then again...) the Irish faction arrived with rosy cheeks and the Scotish Calvinists who wouldn't let us kids play outside on Sundays...my dad's brother's boyfriend sitting on my uncle's knees...kids all over the place, dogs, cats...

Catholics/protestants, Republicans and Democrats, folks from Dixie who had grown up in Jim Crow towns and the black maid and gardener and their families.

We all managed to be happy together for the holiday.

Beats me what happened to my family, but it sure sounds like this is a general experience. I wasn't raised this way, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with money or social class.

With a lack of class, yes. But why? Why can't we just be civil through one day, a few times a year?
 
Keven:

"Why can't we just be civil through one day, a few times a year?"

It's an outcome of the cultural shift that began in the '60s. There used to be an ethic of common good, where one put aside one's own feelings and preferences to help a group reach a desired goal. Today, it's all about "Me." Each and every one of us considers himself entitled to full expression of every last quirk and foible, under any and all circumstances. That may, as selfsy-helpsy gurus suggest, be healthy for the individual, but it is absolute pure living hell on institutions such as family and social gatherings. People show up for an event dressed as they please, as late as they please, prepared to talk only about what they please and ready to conduct themselves in whatever way they please. We've all seen how this works at Thanksgiving, where peace and harmony are not achievable due to everyone pulling in different directions, but it's everywhere - even Buckingham Palace has trouble getting people to show up on time, properly dressed and behaving in a fashion suitable for a meeting for the Queen. I don't think it's too much to ask that people behave themselves decently well for a few hours a year, or on important occasions, but some of the people I know - and some I'm related to - definitely see it differently.

It stinketh.
 
I had family memebers that could not be civil

for more than 5 mins. if it was going to kill them.. and I really think that is just what happened to most of them. Also the cats had better manners than they did. Look more like something from Hee Haw.. even had a aunt that looked just like LULU but everyone call her moo moo she was bigger than a cow.Did not bother her a bit. If fact she liked being called old cow.
 
By The Way:

A really, really mind-boggling example of how far the "Me" generation is willing to go happened only last week at the White House, when two reality-show wannabes crashed a state dinner. It should be inconceivable for anyone to put their show-biz aspirations before the safety and security of the President of the United States, but noooooooooooo.
 
Mac, Sandy

Valid points.

It's funny how similar open fora are to families. I was a member of a well-known, very gay oriented online-club for many years. Conditions for membership included at least one meeting in the reality-based world and certain, um, characteristics qualified one.
Rather like the red-headed league.
Now, there were passionate arguments and discussions, but all of us in that club were there as a homogeneous group. The club directors (over my vote) decided to open it up to all interested and within six months it was dead.

I don't know how Robert keeps us going here, it is a battle for me to set aside my own acute sense of "I'm right, you're wrong and I'm going to rub your face in it tell you say uncle" on frequent occasions. I was a gay rights activist of the Actup! persuasion before many folks here were even born and taking a measured approach to something like Amazon, as you did, Sandy, is very hard for me. It wasn't, in fact, until they proved that they had reworked their system so that a Right-Wing Christian couldn't do that again that I returned to them...I'm terrible at advancing any trust, at all.

But I keep trying and so do many, many folks here. The two most common reminders to sit down and shut up being, in fact, family based: You're in Robert's living room, and who'd like some cake?

Wish my family could manage that.

But looking forward to having them at my partner's house for Christmas. Might well be the last, good family Christmas I have with them, ever.
 
We just don't go.

We had a very busy day cooking together, ate the wonderful dinner we worked hard to cook, sat down with just the two of us and our nearly-11-year-old dog. Savored every bite, toasted "To US!" with a nice glass of red wine, gave our baby a few bites of turkey, smiled at each other as the endorphins kicked in, and that was it. Afterward we picked the turkey carcass, split all the leftovers in half (half for us, and half for a friend with a small child and a newly-jobless partner), and took a nap. Then we got up, made a little coffee and had pie. A splendid time was had by all.

My family can best be described as being right out of a combo of a Tennessee Williams play and "Greater Tuna"...but the drama always outweighed the comedy. People just don't exist below the waist in my family. No genitals acknowledged or allowed. Only "talk" I ever got about the Birds and Bees was in 1974 at the tender age of 15, when my mom handed me the pamphlet printed by the Kotex company the year I was born entitled "So This Is Your First Period!" (I *am* a guy, if there's any confusion...lemme tellya...I sure went through some after THAT!) After my mom died, my dad married her "best friend" (one of those sugar-coated-rattlesnake-venom-oozing small-town Texas women whose name Momma always prefaced with "That Damned Old..."). Right before she died, Momma called me to say "Don't you let That Damned Old ***** get her claws into your Daddy after I'm gone!" (Tall order, that!) My older sister and her obnoxious husband are Repubs and Baptists, older brother and wife are nice folks, but we just don't live in the same world. My sweetie's family is now just her (also-Jeebusized) older sister and her "trailer boy" partner. Over the last few years the two of us have just quietly retreated. Still have contact with my two nieces (great kids, now in their 30s), but that's about it for my side. Her sister calls twice a year or so.

It's kinda sad not to have a "family" on some levels, yes, but now WE and our darling Blanche are "Our Family," and that's really OK. We're both fiercely individualistic and creative people, building our own world (cue The Seekers' "A World Of Our Own" from 1964), and that suits us fine...so we got a late start on it all (been together 13 years, she's 58, I'm just about 51), but we're still pluggin' along. Neither of our "families" could ever even begin to comprehend who we really were when we were growing up (and looking back on it, they never really *wanted* to), and now we have each other. And that's groovy, indeed, folks...groovy indeed!

charbee++11-30-2009-14-08-48.jpg
 
WOW!!

I must live in Ozzie and Harriets world.In our family we all respect each other.I might add Its a yours mine and Ours Family.Same father different mother and vice versa.My brother is the only child between the two.My father died 10 years ago and my mother or step mother in legality,is a wonderful person 7 kids one passed away 2 years ago.all of us in our 40s and fifties now.We never discuss politics or religion.Nor who is gay or not everyone has always been accepted in our home.We are always glad to see each other and are interested in what each others interests are.After reading these posts,I never realized how good we have had it.Oh yes weve had our share of illness and death.We aways seem to pull together and comfort each other.Thanks PS I cant wait to see everyone at Christmas. Bobby
 
Thanksgiving Day started here with a bang! My sister's half-assed "fiance'" came home drunk at 1am after being out drinking God knows where, with money he doesn't have. My sister told him that it's finally over between them (I hope so). He then woke up at 9:30am and walked to the gas station and got a 1.75l bottle of Kessler's and then proceeded to drink some more. She begged my wife and I to let her take him some leftovers, which we did. Saturday she informed us that he didn't appreciate them, so I told her that he can f--- himself from now on. This is only the tip of the iceberg as far as crap he's pulled on my sister, I hope she finally wakes up and dumps his stupid ass.
 
Oh, and Keven-

You don't get much more Irish than my Mama's family; black hair and green eyes to boot. Somehow, we've just managed to live up to my Grandma's desire for there to be peace in the family. Not that there aren't little "flare ups", but for the most part we are clannish to the end.

My sincere best wishes to all of ya'll.
 
Gee Pete, what's on your mind??

I would have never gotten that from Keven's post had you not mentioned it. I actually had to go back and re-read the posts to find what I think *might* be that reference.

But hey, what's wrong with having a nice rooster close by?

<grin>
 

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