I love Christmas; I always have. Not more than Halloween, of course, but no feeling can match that of the gathering of family and friends, the sharing of the year’s memories, and the joy of delivering happiness upon a loved one’s face.
Between my darkest of depression-holes and my brightest of life’s achievements, the holiday of Christmas – and its surrounding season – existed as a stabilizer. A time where, seemingly, the hills, valleys, and grinding gears of our lives stood still; taking a moment to breathe the thin, peaked air. The repertory season that, without fail, allowed for our pause.
It seems as though the days of tension cessation have concluded. Life’s reality foregrounded forever more. Still the question stands: Which reality will we make our own?
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Pseudo-Reality: queerness is irrelevant; religion implied rather than imposed; and disputes are temporarily resolved.
Should we, as a society, decide upon the non-recognition of our differences, then ideally, Christmas could occur as usual. After all, this is the route most frequently taken by my family during the holiday season. That is not to say that it is the correct route, though. In fact, this route may be the damndest of them all.
To eliminate variables of unique belief, to willingly disregard our afforded privileges or ignore our predetermined oppressions, is to, without a shred of doubt, take maleficent action in support of the oppressors. Racism is not rectified by color-blindness; Queerness cannot be deemed equal without the existence of labels at large; Class struggles are not benefited from turning a blind-eye to the wealth hoarders in our society; Faith is not provable in the elimination of its competition.
The existence of difference, and our recognition of it, is precisely what distinguishes our species from others. Our population is expansive, broadening our cultures in tandem with the growth of the populous. It is clear that between what is culturally popular (say: christianity, primary education, and the male-female gender binary) to what is culturally niche (say: zoroastrianism, home-schooling, and genderqueer identities), humans occupy a vast spectrum of difference from one another.
Our support or opposition to difference is also characteristically human; When presented with a binary, the human instinct is to pick a side. Difference itself, definitively, is oppositionist; Defined as a way in which people or things are not the same. Thus, shifting the question at large: What, or whom, is benefitted from a populous of identical beings?
If we mirror each other’s existences, how will relationships work? If we reflect one another, will there be a free, competitive market? If we exist identically, can we even have a leader? Would issues and their resolutions be obsolete?
This pseudo-reality is communistic in nature, relying on the creation of a falsified equality. Our differences should act as a unifier; without it, our global domination would cease to exist.
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Intra-Reality – Jesus is queer; catholicism is a synonym for colonial-capitalism; and neutrality honors the oppressor.
This intra-reality is anarchist in nature, bound by the system already in place. Without a difference-oppressionist regime, the reality of our unique perspectives would be celebrated. Perhaps, without anarchy, we may never achieve such unity.
The prefix ‘intra-’ determines its base to exist ‘inside/within’; in the example of this reality, intra- is determining that these claims can only be made from within the governing structure. Our governing structure, in this reality, is the real-life functions of our dominant religious institution(s). It would be impossible to vocalize the statement, “Jesus is queer,” if ‘Jesus’ and ‘Queerness’ were not foregrounded as important variables within the institution of western catholicism. Further, Jesus is queer as bound by the definition of queerness; He is a contradiction to what is heterosexually-typical, both in his conception and the non-implementation of his sexuality in adulthood. Canonically, Jesus was asexual, as was his mother, making both of them asexuals, covered under the umbrella-label of queer!
Now, who really cares if Jesus was queer? Not only has he been dead for 2,000 years, but these connections are merely a slippery-slope of loosely-related concepts. Allow me to tighten the relations and add friction to the slope.
Jesus recognized his queerness, and employed it towards granting salvation to the human population. His divergence from the norm is the very qualifier that allows our consideration of the divine. Further, Jesus was Jewish – in fact, labeled as King of the Jews. Jesus’s actions were anti-colonial, and honored an ethic of care for all peoples, rather than predetermined demographics. He honored God by participating in the path he was called to. If Jesus had been called to be non-oppressionist, and to spread the word of God, then we can be confident in believing that God, too, is a non-oppressionist. Any actions that support or ignore the oppressions of our reality are neither aligned with Jesus or God.
Though you and I are restricted to the edges of institutional ideology, occasionally, our collective inquiries can ease the surface tension. With trial and effort, it is possible to be rid of this tension and break free of institutional confines. Our challenge is no longer resilience; Our challenge is unified strength.
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Extra-Reality – my children are going to hell; how to return them to god; perhaps we must pray together.
This extra-reality is delusionally-narcissistic in nature, creating indemonstrable realities as a consequence for our own morality or lack thereof. Religion is a preceptive scorecard for human life. In religion’s absence, one’s natural morals are foregrounded.
Reality here entirely opposes the previous. Actions, ideas, and institutions are otherworldly; They do not tangibly exist; They cannot be verified by our senses. Most religions exist outside the guidelines of what our senses are able to prove, but I am not suggesting all religions are delusional or narcissistic – though some may be. Rather, the institution of religion exists within our reality, but the implications of the religion (say: being queer, leaving the religion), exist outside of the Planet Earth.
The judge, the jail, the coveted-eternal-third-space, the action of sin, and the action of repentance are like invisible trains racing through the tracks of our body, out of our souls, and into the eternal void just past our atmosphere. Their existence is not what I question: I question why we allow their potential existence to impact our certain existences.
To live in the past is to have failed; To live in the future is to have lost time; To live in the present is to make certain you are alive.
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Our Reality – Identity supersedes religion, Christmas is cancelled.
This reality is sad; an amalgamation of pages stolen from the book of pseudo- and extra-reality. A revolution of intra-reality can be our savior; Without anarchy, this may very well have been, The Last Christmas.
My whole life I had longed for The Last Christmas. For over a decade, my deepest desire had been to cease all contact with my parents; To never speak, meet, or interact in any capacity until death do us part. The abuse, mistreatment, and neglect upon their hands is sufficient for my willingness to self-remove. I had not wished others to remove them, but simply, wished to remove myself. This wish became much more difficult to fulfill after my younger sister, Katelyn, came out as queer too. I knew the unjust treatment she would soon face, and could not part ways from them yet. At the time – in 2020 – I vowed to continue minimizing my interactions with them, while still being present in their environments, especially around the holidays. This effort was beneficial in showing my siblings that I was not leaving them; I was leaving our parents. Still, I felt lucky to have shared a handful of holidays amongst my siblings with minimal interference from our carriers.
Time has marched slowly onward as Katelyn has grown, and on her 17th birthday, we had achieved a benchmark that had inspired our entire journey thus far: Only one year left. Finally, we had only one more September, one more October, one more birthday, one more thanksgiving, one more Christmas. Our year of lasts had begun, and a life of firsts was soon coming!
Life continued inching forward, the clocks changed, and the weather became cold. The Last Christmas was just a few weeks away. Only a month prior, I had been wed to the love of my life. Strangely, yet still in stereotypicality, life had presented her dichotomy: The Last Christmas would be The First Christmas.
A wonderful benefit to having a massive family is that our holidays all followed a pretty strict routine: each Christmas celebration happened around the same date/time each year. The Gonzales family Christmas on Christmas eve, immediate family Christmas morning, and some form of lazy Katsbulas celebration mid-evening-time on Christmas Day. When Serena’s family started growing, her in-laws took place weeks before or after, and her family filled the Christmas morning spot, while our immediate family took the place of the Gonzales Christmas, which had since been moved to a weekend prior. When I moved out, our celebration remained on Christmas Eve.
Last year, without notice, our parents decided that Christmas Eve was no longer suitable; they had rid themselves of their traditional midnight mass, and opted for the 4pm instead, directly conflicting with our typically-scheduled Christmas. Instead, they would be hosting Christmas Day from 11am-1pm – notably shorter than past celebrations as well. Personally, I already had plans set during that time frame, so I offered two additional times around Christmas that are more opportune after confirming with my husband, two younger siblings, and my older sister and her family of their availability.
My parents declined:
Joe stated, “Not everyone is free those days.”
Tammy said, “We sorry you can’t make it on the 25th.”
I guess we may call them the Grinch and Grinchess.
All attendees – including my parents – were available on the dates I offered; The issue was not scheduling; The issue was that I now had a husband. I am still unsure how our love can impact the world’s most celebrated holiday; I still question why the concealed existence of our penises qualify us for mistreatment by familial tradition; Still, I wonder why they recognize our marriage in this circumstance, but not in others. I am curious of the power my love may hold if it is able to impact stubborn fixtures in such significant ways. In their intentional ignorance of it, my parents have recognized my love – their last Christmas present, is perhaps, their best yet!
I left my siblings gifts on my Nanny’s porch on Christmas eve.
My parents gave me theirs about a month later.
Jordan did not receive any – aside from my two sisters.
The Last Christmas is The First Christmas of the rest of my life, and I thank God for that – whether he’s queer or not!