On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, I set aside old family traditions and traded them for new ones.  Surrounded by lesbians, drag queens and strippers, I celebrated my first gay Thanksgiving. 

Anyone having grown up in the North American Public School system knows the story of the first Thanksgiving.  The Pilgrims and Native Americans of Plymouth, Massachusetts got together back in 1621 and celebrated the autumn harvest with a feast.  Since that fateful day grade school children have experienced the joy of creating hand traced turkeys and extended family members come together, sometimes begrudgingly, for an orgy of food and football on the fourth Thursday of every November. 

For those of us in the LBGT community, Thanksgiving can be bitter sweet.  Sure, we get a brief respite from the mundane tasks of our jobs and the day serves as another excuse to go out and ‘party’.  In fact, it’s been reported that Thanksgiving Day is the busiest day of the year for gay bars and nightclubs.  But for many in our community, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of a period of loneliness and depression that usually last until after New Year’s Day.
 
I truly empathize with those people who struggle emotionally during this time of ‘giving thanks’ and ‘peace on earth’.    Having grown up in a strict religious home, reverence & respect for Thanksgiving and Christmas was instilled in me from early childhood. Tradition & family were paramount in our family’s celebration of the holidays.  But this whole “Normal Rockwell” view of Thanksgiving was shattered when I was ‘outed’ as a gay man.

The first Thanksgiving after being forced out of the closet was the beginning of a new chapter of my life.  It was ten years ago and I was living in the Ford Factory Lofts in Midtown Atlanta, four floors above the renowned Model T gay bar. Waking up to a cold and wet day, typical of Georgia’s winter, I debated on whether or not to sleep through this ‘day of thanks’.  I was lonely and depressed and gratitude was not something I was feeling. 

I forced myself out of bed, showered and rode the elevator down to the first floor.  To my surprise, Model T’s was open for business.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one wallowing in self-pity and mired in despair.  The bar was packed and it wasn’t yet noon.

I know it seems so cliché, but all the ingredients for a bleak and dismal holiday were only a barstool away; awful weather, overwhelming sadness, like-minded strangers, and cheap vodka.  “Perhaps I could drink my self into an oblivious stupor and stumble my way back upstairs to sleep the rest of the day away,” I thought. 

But something extraordinary happened in that dingy hole-in-the-wall excuse for a bar that day.  It wasn’t Charles Dickensesque or even close to a Miracle on 34^th Street…but for me anyway, it was an epiphany. 

Around 1 PM we were visited by an angel.  Her name was Jill, a fifty-something year old, gruff and tough, hard drinking, tough talking lesbian who happened to be the proprietor of the bar.  With the assistance of a gaggle of drag queens and barely clad male strippers, this ‘angel’ served up one of the most delicious Thanksgiving banquets I’d ever had the pleasure of enjoying…with all the trimmings and fixins!

As generous portions of turkey and dressing and massive heaps of mashed potatoes and gravy were being served, the conversation in the bar grew louder and more animated.  In an attempt to compete with the increasing sound of laughter and merriment, the bartender raised the music’s volume, which only caused the crowd get even louder and more boisterous.  

The atmosphere in this little saloon had gone from that of a funeral home parlor to a festive Holiday celebration in just a matter of minutes. 

Jill knew the importance of being with family on Thanksgiving. She also knew most of the people sitting in her establishment were estranged from their own families. Responding with her heart and her checkbook, this angel proved to me that family is not always determined by bloodline.  The willingness of this Thanksgiving Angel to give, borne out of her concern and love for her ‘boys’, as she called them, led those gathered that day to feel, at least for an afternoon, that they were part of a family. 

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, I set aside old family traditions, those vestiges of the past, and traded them for new ones.  Surrounded by drag queens, drunks, strippers, lesbians, and all stripes of homos, it struck me that a sense of family and community can be realized, even in the direst of circumstances.  My wish for you is that, whomever you are celebrating with, you will have a very Happy Thanksgiving.   

If you feel alone this Holiday Season, please know that there are people who care.  If you need someone to talk to, please consider calling my friends at Switch Board Miami.  Just Dial 211 and someone will be standing by to offer you help, hope and encouragement.  If you are a teenager, call our friends at The Trevor Project. Their number is 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386).  There are people on the other end of the phone line who understand the special needs of LGBT youth.  You are not alone!