Home For the Holidays

Introduction

Welcome back readers. Well, with the Holiday season upon us, I thought this would be a good opportunity to explore how various characters from my novel Palingenesis spend this time of the year. But before I get to that, if you celebrate, what do you do? Do spend time with your extended family, or are you more the type to visit your parents and call it a night? Let me know in the comments.

I also know this time of year can be lonely and hard for those of us who can’t go home because of our sexual orientation or gender identity. I want you to know you are loved and valid every day of the year and that family is more than who you share DNA with.

Without further preamble, let’s dive right in.

Travis

 Whenever he can, Travis spends Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years at his grandmother’s. She makes all the all the food from scratch and lets him eat his fill without any comments on his weight, unlike his family. Then they spend time listening to old music on her phonograph, while she regals him with stories of her youth. And on New Year’s Eve she lets him stay up late and sip from her flute of champagne.

When he has to stay home, Travis spends the time locked in his room gaming or reading so he doesn’t have to deal with his family.   

Josh

 Josh spends most of his holidays with his friends when his parents aren’t home. For Christmas and Easter, he always goes to Midnight mass with Jason. Then it’s either back to the Jason’ s house or the house of one of his other friends.

When his parents are home, they have their meals catered and do a White Elephant gift exchange, which usually ends with him being stuck with the crappy gifts because his mother throws a fit if she doesn’t get what she wants. Then his father locks himself in his study and smokes cigars and drinks whisky until he passes out.    

Jenny

  When she has them off, Jenny spends the holidays making cookies and other baked goods for her friends. She donates the leftovers to soup kitchens. She spends Christmas day volunteering at a free clinic. As for New Year’s Eve, she watches the ball drop on TV while rereading Twilight.   

Agent Anderson

When he can get the time off, Agent Anderson spends Thanksgiving with his large family, where his older brothers make him feel like a kid again. He spends Christmas at the Nursery, the holding facility for metahumans (kids with superpowers a la the X-men), and passes out gifts he bought with his own money. He feels it’s the least he can do since many of the kids there haven’t seen their family in years.

Jason

After Christmas Midnight Mass, Jason goes right to bed and sleeps in the next day. After dinner with his family, he hits up his social medias trolling for hook ups. When Josh stays with them, Jason is on his best behavior. They exchange gifts and game awhile before bed, and all the next day Jason tries to make Josh feel like he’s wanted and loved.

He spends most New Year’s Eves at parties with David getting hammered and trying to pick up guys and girls to varying degrees of success.

David

David celebrates Chanukah with his immediate and extended family, who fly in from all over the country. They have a big family dinner on the last night of Chanukah, then exchange gifts.

 After his extended family leaves, David will have a small Christmas celebration with Jason and Josh, where they give gifts, mostly videogames or gift cards, and pig out on junk food as they have marathon gaming sessions.

Oblivion

As evil incarnate, Oblivion spends the holidays whispering to people to give in to their baser instincts. He delights in causing strife between family members and considers it a monumental victory when he can push someone into dying by suicide.

Grams

As mentioned above, Grams loves spoiling Travis when he comes to stay with her. But when he can’t, she spends the time knitting sweaters and socks for the homeless and puts her cooking skills to work making a feast for the less fortunate in her community. She also throws a charity auction for New Year’s, with all proceeds going to UNICEF. She and her friends also get together to exchange gifts and reminisce about old times.    

Rachel

Most holidays, Rachel is busy working at her family’s restaurant. When she can sneak away, she and her friends have a party at Josh’s house and sneak drinks from his parents’ liquor cabinet. Afterward, she helps her grandmother take plates of food to the elderly and poor in their community.

Once the restaurant is closed and cleaned, they got back to their house and feast on all her favorite Chinese and southern dishes that have been warming on the stove and in the oven.   

Brianna

 Brianna’s relatives drive in, and the kids spend the holidays laughing, singing, and playing games. The women help in the kitchen while the men drink and watch football.

She and her cousins dish on the boys they’ve hooked up with and the family gossip of who’s going broke, who’s cheating on who and with who, and who’s failing school. Unlike the rest of her family, they don’t make fun of her for not being fluent in Spanish or having darker skin.

Matthew

Matthew’s family alternates between going to his uncle’s house and his uncle’s family coming to their house. When at his uncle’s house, he and his cousins will sneak shots of Jim Bean, then load up on their ATV’s and go hunting for whatever they can find and eat what they kill. If they don’t bag anything, they’ll eat the meal their moms cook, which takes all day as they have so many people to feed.

When they have Christmas at Matthews’s house, he’ll sneak Henry over, and they and his cousins will have a game of football outside, even if there’s a foot of snow. By the end of the game, everyone’s tired, hungry, and a mess, so they take turns showering, then join their dads watching the football game on the big screen in the living room. When their moms aren’t looking their dads let them have a beer each. After eating all the men have to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen.

Henry

Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only times Henry breaks his strict diet. Knowing this, his parents go all out cooking his favorites—double-fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, baked macaroni and cheese, turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy, and pecan pie with homemade vanilla ice cream.

To work off all those calories, Henry hits his weight set, then plays two-hand-touch football with his cousins. This devolves into pick ‘em up mess ‘em up, and a fight or two breaks out until their dads tell them to knock it off and come inside.

At that point their Uncle Scott is drunk and ragging about the illuminati and Israel, so Henry and his dad have to drive him back to his house because he’s the only one Uncle Scott listens to when he gets like that.     

Conclusion

Thanks for reading and happy holidays, however you celebrate.

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