Bye Bi Christmas

The holiday season is supposed to be a joyous occasion where you look forward to delicious food, festive decorations, and quality time spent with loved ones. For those of us who have had to cut off toxic relatives and friends, however, this isn’t always the case. Even for those who don’t sever ties, going home to visit a broken family may be wrought with dysfunction and chaos. For people like us, the holidays may be a difficult, lonely, and painful time.

I used to enjoy spending every Thanksgiving and Christmas with my maternal cousins. We would have a feast and sit around talking, maybe playing board games or watching TV specials. Every Christmas, we’d stay up all night unwrapping gifts. It was our tradition to wrap the gifts as many times as possible so they’d take forever to open. I once wrapped a $50 eBay gift card so many times that it was the size of a microwave! It was a fun way of pranking each other that always brought a ton of laughs.

Although I loved spending the holidays with them, over the years, it became more and more challenging. I went off to college, and though I wasn’t far from home, it was difficult to take public transit back to my hometown. So if I was able to make the trip, I had to stay in town for a few days while the dorms were closed and sleep over with them.

They were always gracious about letting me stay, and I was grateful. But tension began filling the room if I ever mentioned how things were going for me. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about how much I loved UCLA because they always had complaints about the for-profit schools they were attending. They always had unfortunate stories about uncooperative peers, which left me feeling that there wasn’t space for me to share my happiness and success.

The real last straw was when I came out, in a very subtle way.

Going to UCLA opened so many doors for me, one of which was gender studies. After having a hard time with the English department, I switched my major to gender studies and was warmly welcomed. I studied feminism, ethnic studies, sociology, psychology, and LGBT studies. I learned the language necessary to articulate my life experiences, and I felt empowered because of it.

I realized that I wasn’t completely straight, and I had a huge crush on a girl when I studied abroad in New York. I was in the questioning phase of determining my sexuality, and I found it liberating.

I casually told my cousins that if a girl asked me out on a date, I wouldn’t say no. It was nonchalant and I didn’t think much of it. But my youngest cousin responded by telling her sister, “Should I punch Sky?”.

I didn’t understand the desire to resort to violence, even if it was a joke, simply because I confessed to possibly wanting to give a girl a chance if the opportunity ever presented itself.

I left the topic alone after that and didn’t bring it up again.

But it became even more tense when I visited over holiday breaks, and they would make jokes about being with a woman, saying how “gross” it would be. They referred to oral sex between two women as “carpet munching” and would cringe and laugh at how disgusting they thought it was.

I was appalled by their remarks, finding them absolutely distasteful and unnecessary (if not deeply homophobic), and I didn’t know if they made these comments in front of me on purpose. Didn’t they realize I was exploring my own sexual identity? Were they making these crude jokes to be biphobic around me deliberately? (As a possible attempt to dissuade me from my interests in the same sex?)

Spending time around them became less and less enjoyable. It didn’t feel worth it anymore. They became prone to petty bickering, and I didn’t feel like I could be myself around them anymore. I felt like I had to hide all of the best parts of myself, the parts that I was newly discovering and was most proud of. And to be honest, it seemed like their food was getting less tasty each year anyway!

I remember one year, I hadn’t seen them in quite a while, and I went over for Christmas. I had requested they make their sweet potato casserole because it was my favorite. I had seen them briefly on Thanksgiving, but they said they didn’t have the time to prepare it then, so they promised they’d make it for me on Christmas instead.

When I showed up, excited to taste the heavenly golden goodness, it turned out they didn’t bother to make it. Instead, even though they hated the dish, they made a green bean casserole for their next-door neighbor because it was his favorite. It made me realize they didn’t value my presence there. The insulting and derogatory jokes only added insult to injury.

My cousins and I had been through a lot together. We both grew up with very abusive parents, and we found refuge in each other. But my older cousin was able to adopt her sister, while I had to go into foster care. I consider my experience in foster care a miracle, and I’m still very close with my foster mother. But me being an only child and placed into the system meant I had to take care of myself and go off to college, which made my cousins and I grow farther apart.

Both former foster youth and LGBT young adults deal with tumultuous holidays filled with family strife, and this unfortunate phenomenon can be compounded if you belong to both groups.

I saw many of their actions as hurtful and obnoxious, and I decided that would be my last Christmas with them. I haven’t seen or spoken to them since. I’ve found great closure with this choice. At first, I missed the holiday traditions with them, but I’ve made my own traditions. I created a Friendsgiving to always share good food and fun with my best friends, the ones I consider my true family. And I spend more time with my dad’s side of the family and my foster mother now, which has been delightful and much less stressful. Saying “bye” to them and their close-minded ways opened the door for me to have new holidays with loved ones I can be myself around, which has really made it a season full of joy and newfound peace.

So season’s greetings and happy holidays to you and yours!