Winter’s Favorite Giveaway Day~~22

Hi there! ::waves:: I’m DC Juris, and I’ll be your guest blogger today! For those of you who are scratching your head at just who exactly I might be, I’m a transgender fella who writes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and heterosexual romance, or, as I like to call it – hot smut!

Anyone who is familiar with me knows I grew up in an abusive household. Consequently, holidays were pretty much a wash. Dad would spend all day Thanksgiving Day getting drunk and yelling at the turkey smoker in the yard. Christmas time I’d get hauled off to his mother’s house, where everyone hated everyone else, and you were next! Then there was the year dad, in a typical drunken rage, kicked mom and I out on Christmas Eve and we slept in the neighbor’s car. Yeah…Let’s just say I found the phrase bah, humbug more than a little fitting.

Once I moved out on my own, I vowed to change all that. The first few years, I rebelled against the family by not going to Christmas dinner at all. They didn’t accept me anyhow, why should I bother? Then for a few years I went, but didn’t stay long. Said hi and bye to grandmother, and that was pretty much it. For a little while, I tried to make an effort. I cooked grand side dishes, festooned in colorful seasonal dishes with little Christmas trees or Santas on them. But nothing I did ever felt right.

It wasn’t until I moved in with the love of my life that the holidays took on an actual meaning for me. He had two kids, so finally I could shop for someone, watch them open presents and see them delight in their gifts. He had warm, welcoming family. We went to his mother’s house and sat around a roaring fireplace, ate until we thought we’d burst, opened thoughtful gifts (not the usual socks and sweater I’d become accustomed to). The first year of putting up our very own Christmas tree was special, too. Hubby hadn’t really done much in the way of Christmas décor since his divorce, so we had to go buy a tree (a fake one – I’m allergic to the real thing) and all the stuff to go along with it.

We also started a couple traditions of our own. Every year we search for a new elephant Christmas ornament. It’s not as easy as you might think – not every store has one. We’ve had to get really creative in finding them. This year, Hubby found one very early, at the first place he went to.

A couple years ago, I did something else that drastically changed the face of Christmas: I stopped getting together with my mother. I know that sounds horrible, but if you know anything about me, you know our relationship was strained at best. My mother has a lot of issues she won’t get help for, and she spends most of her time either belittling me, rehashing her past, or praising my father (who mentally, physically, and sexually abused me). Breaking away from my mother at the holidays has made a world of difference. I’m no longer sick with stress the week up to and the week after. And I’ve found I don’t eat as much, so I don’t pack on the holiday pounds. Go figure!

Hubby and I typically get a pizza now instead of cooking – both the kids are grown and moved out, so there’s no more hassling back and forth between their biological mother and our house, no driving out to the middle of nowhere at 9 o’clock at night to drop them off or pick them up. Nowadays, Christmas day is a lazy day, full of pizza, soda, and zombie movies on DVD.

I guess the point of this post is that, though your holiday celebration may be a little unorthodox, you have to seize it and make it your own. No matter how crazy anyone thinks you are!

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To enter for a chance to win an E-book of DC’s back list. Please leave DC a comment, tell him what your planning on eating Christmas evening, then head over to the MAIN Winter’s Favorite page (<< — Click link) to enter the giveaway.