Why Gays Don’t Like Christmas.

Over the phone on Christmas morning, I can hear the stifled laughter in my sister’s voice. She knows the answer, but she asks the question anyway and she can’t wait for me to hear the punch line. She is high. Why, she asks, don’t gays like Christmas?

Well, obviously plenty of us like it, even a little too much. All the decoration and shopping are a ready draw to the stereotypical homo. The opportunity to be fabulous is too good to resist, and the season of sparkly lights, fur coats, and musical numbers is a perfect excuse. I mean, really. What could be more glorious than to wear nothing but a pair of red velvet hotpants, a Santa hat, and white fur handcuffs on the holiest day of the entire Christian year? It’s definitely something to be Merry about.

Still, my sister says, contemporary gays aren’t as stereotypical as they once were, and come Christmas, we’re just not very merry.

Admittedly, she may have a point. Excuses aside, Head Chef and I did nothing for ourselves for Christmas, save for the handful of obligatory parties. We neither exchanged gifts nor made a feast. We mocked the Frat House when a tree, beautiful though it was, showed up one day. A friend even sat home with his boyfriend and watched movies and ate – get this – Burritos. Seriously. So it’s easy to see how the next great stereotype of the homosexual is that we hate Christmas. And honestly, many do.

But my sister’s theory as to why is wonderful. Gays are generally happy, she says. We party a lot, we have close groups of friends, and our careers go through the roof. We enjoy life to it’s fullest, goes her reasoning, and we even describe ourselves with a word that is synonymous with merry.

And that little semantic bit is the crux of her argument. How can someone be more merry if essential happiness is an integral part of his identity? It can’t be done, because we’re already so damned happy and gay that additional gaiety would simply be overload. Thus we cannot love Christmas.

Obviously, there are ample opportunities to shoot holes in her amusing theory. But there may also be a shred of truth to it. If so, I think I just might choose to believe.