For many Americans, Thanksgiving means coming face-to-face with all your fears, insecurities and failures, i.e. your family. Being queer can certainly add fuel to that familial firepit, but buck up, kids! Queerty’s here to help you get through Turkey Day with your wits—and the top button of your pants—intact. When packing for your reluctant trip home, make sure to add these essentials to ensure you return in one piece, more or less.
Booze
Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like getting three sheets to the wind with your favorite spinster aunt—the one everyone says has a drinking problem, but you know just likes to have funs. Cut to dessert: Mom’s face-down in the Jell-O, dad’s yelling at the shadows on the wall and you and Auntie Maimed are crying over Downton Abbey.
Grindr
The worst part about going home is missing out on all the Thanksgiving tail flooding into your gayborhood. The best part about going home? Capitalizing on all the Thanksgiving tail flooding back into your old stomping grounds.
Porn
When you realize everyone from high school got fat, married or both, you’ll be ready with your old friend, Palm Selleck. Thanksgiving is just oozing with sexual imagery, what with all that basting, stuffing and gorging (those skank Pilgrims!). Who can blame you for sneaking away to release some “holiday tension”?
Experimental Mexican Diet Pills
Thanksgiving is just a government-sanctioned excuse to put on ten pounds. It marks the beginning of the dreaded season of holiday bloat, which inevitably culminates with a walk of shame to the gym come January 2. Why not cut that resolution off at the pass in the shadiest and least healthy way possible? Your major organs may hate you, but your swimsuit will thank you come spring.
The Ice Storm on DVD
A good dysfunctional drama is a must for Thanksgiving, if only to remind you that there are worse families out there (even if only in Hollywood). Helmed by Brokeback Mountain‘s Ang Lee, The Ice Storm is a personal fave, with a powerhouse cast including Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver and miniature versions of Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood Katie Holmes and Tobey Maguire. You’ll be a weepy mass of sadness whether or not your Tea Party uncle gives his traditional “this country’s going to hell” speech.
A Playlist of Gay Anthems
If your parents aren’t completely on board with the whole queer thing—or as ours like to refer to it, “your refusal to make me happy”—it’s important to turn on your favorite power anthem and drown out the bullshit. Whether you were “born this way” as a “beautiful” “firework” or simply “strong enough” to “dance with somebody,” we have one thing to say: you betta werq.
Magic Mike on DVD. See “Porn.”
MSNBC
This is the first time that many families are gathering post-Election Day so political tensions could run high. (Especially if your grandma left the secession paperwork on the dining-room table.) So diffuse the situation, or make it a lot worse, by blasting MSNBC as loud as possible from the biggest set in the house. Let the Maddow glow permeate your family table as you remind your conservative cousins how you can now get married in, like, a fifth of the country.
An Unnecessarily Formal Wardrobe
Returning home gives us gays the opportunity to rub our post-high-school selves in everyone’s faces. It’s like a walking “It Gets Better” video. Even if you’re a go-go boy at Woody’s or (shudder) a waitress at the Olive Garden, you can own it by dressing to the nines. If you at least look the part, who’s to know the difference? “Yes I’m wearing a three-piece suit, top hat and ermine jacket on a Thursday afternoon. It’s called professionalism!”
Plus, when you wear an unapologetically snazzy outfit, your mom will have one less thing to complain about—leaving her more energy for those the 943,719 other things she’ll undoubtedly have to nitpick.
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1EqualityUSA
oh, wow. This is the brand that had me give up alcohol back in 1985. I came home drunk on Wild Turkey and screwed up a painting into which I had put six months of my life. When I woke up and saw how screwed it was, I gave up drinking that day. Twenty eight years later, who would have thought that a turkey could have so much influence. I did have an aunt that drank, as well. The reasons compiled. Waiting until it became insurmountable seemed dire. No regrets. Have a beautiful T.G. Queertiers. Remember, sugary drinks give you the worst hangovers. Apricot brandy, no.
toren123
With me it was Canadian rye. Well I am a Canuck! To this day I can’t even stand the smell of it. But a Bombay Sapphire classic martini with a whisper of Noilly Prat vermouth, and I can get through any family Thanksgiving. Well maybe two of those classics!
the other Greg
My family doesn’t drink. No wonder I never go there!