Out in the Mountains

    

by Cheri Goldstein

Across the table sits Uncle Keith. Next
to him are Aunt Janet and Auntie Libby.
Across from them are Aunt Jackie and
Auntie Fran. Cousins John and Burke
couldn't be here. Claire is busy trying to put
the finishing touches on the gravy. Holly is
making sure the kids have their seats at the
"children's" table. And here I am, sitting
down to the holiday meal with my family.

This scene isn't unlike the scenes that
are played out every holiday throughout the
country. What makes this different is that
there isn't a blood relative in the crowd. Our
birth families are scattered across the
globe. Some of them will call today,
maybe.

We have joined together as a family,
and families spend holidays together. In
just the year and a half that I have known
these folks, they have made me more wel-
come than the majority of my birth family

The Making of a Family

ever did. They never glareor make rude
comments when I touch the ones I love.

So, how did this holiday family come
into being? Our families are created by
love, and they are not necessarily com-
posed of the people we grew up with. All it
takes is bringing the people we care about
together and creating our own traditions.
After all, holidays are created out of tradi-
tions. Each person in a family brings to the
particular holiday pieces of their own re-
membrances.

Traditions are the little things that we
do to make this day different from the rest
of the year. That can mean watching a
parade in your pajamas in the morning,
drinking egg nog in the afternoon, having
pasta with your turkey dinner, saying a
special prayer, or standing under the mis-
tletoe until everyone in the room kisses
you.

For many of us, holidays cause sad

feelings to surface. Some

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of us remember good feel-
ing from our childhood

LESBIAN AND GAY and cannot understand
JOINING CEREMONIES ,'l,'..§,’,.‘Z,?,.$‘j"}‘,‘,°f,.‘,',“‘,’,';f,‘;§.,";
WEDDINGS both of these situations

hold true, and it's still sometimes an effort
to believe that the holiday will be a joyous
one with little accompanying stress. We are
working to make the holiday and subse-
quent traditions what we want them to be
both now and as a solid base for the future.
The feelings we want to have surround our
holidays are created by us. We know each
subsequent holiday will be easier as it be-
comes more familiar.

At our house, when a holiday is in the
offing, we look around to see who might be
alone and we invite him or her to join us. No
holiday in our house is ever a calm, quiet
event, so one more won't change things.
And if there is one more, then why not two
more or three or four? We invite anyone
who might be alone, and if they want to
come, fine, and if they don't want to come,
at least they know that the choice is theirs
and not because no one remembered them.

Once an idea is put into place concem-
ing a holiday, it's easy to go wild and make
it what we want it to be. Holidays do not
need to remain a heterosexual privilege
because only "they" have families. We
have families too, and it is about time that
we reclaimed the idea of family and made it
our own.

 

Green Mountain

Create our own ceremony
to ce[e rate your [we and’
proclaim your s iritual union.
Mmar tfie significance of your
reunions/iip as you sym5o[ica£[y procfizim tfie Eomf

you cfreris/t.
Rev. Giita Clark, ordained minister

Counsefing to resofve
ay and Iesliian couples
amffamify issues.

gay and Iesliian couples
and parenting worksliop q/"fared.

Erica Marks, S.A.C., C.H.
Partners in Recovery and Growth
182 Main Street
Burlington VT 05401

(802)-865-2403

   

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Carol E. Cohen M.S.W.
Life and Career Crises -Troubled Relationships
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