I Don’t Know if Frosty the Snowman Was Queer
By: Ty Bo Yule
Tags: Queer, LGBTQ, Transgender, Holidays, Creative Non Fiction

I Don’t Know if Frosty the Snowman Was Queer

Photo by Misty Ladd on Unsplash

Around this time every year, I descend into my creepy, damp Midwestern basement to retrieve my extensive collection of Christmas decorations. My last name is Yule, so I have collected a multitude of items displaying various Yuletide sayings. “Make the Yuletide Gay” has long been popular in my house.

I have childhood trinkets, defiled religious ornaments, and mementos of girlfriends past. My favorite holiday trimming, however, is my handmade contribution to the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree/Island of Misfit Toys tradition, which is itself an essentially Queer holiday trope doubtlessly formative for generations of fledgling Queers. It was hastily made from an entire roll of aluminum foil unraveled and twisted, with multi-colored twinkly lights coiled around its length, tied in place at regular intervals with red velvet ribbons. It’s meant to be a garland. And just like Rudolph’s nose, it alone holds the perfect magic that guarantees Christmas in my house.

I made it in 1993. I was twenty-three years old. I had a pretty girlfriend and a pretty apartment. I was working on my bachelor’s degree and I had a full-time job in a warehouse, driving forklifts and trucks and handling heavy things. I was living my best baby butch life.

My parents decided they were coming to my place for Christmas for the first time. This is a milestone occasion for many young queers. After living away from my parents’ gaze for a few years, I had started to develop the delusion my life seemed pretty together. After I hung up the phone and realized I was in charge of Christmas that year, I was struck by the possibility my life was more like a diorama of a grown-up life I’d assembled as a craft project.

Suddenly, the produce crate furniture, semi-nude feminist saint iconography, and Riot Grrrl band posters that normally filled me with comfort and renegade joy, became a source of stress and anticipated parental judgement. I started to question the sincerity of my relationship under the weight of unavoidable maternal scrutiny. I didn’t know how to explain to my mother at the time what a huge stud I was. I was still her daughter then and we were still negotiating my gender presentation.

Holidays expose the philosophical contrast between the normative and the queer worlds. Queers can still appreciate normative traditions, but more for their potential ironic value or drag capacity. We create worlds that instinctively critique dominant values to reclaim our own self-worth. That didn’t mean I wanted to piss off or disappoint my parents. I wanted them to see me as an adult who might be a little quirky. Capitalism trains everyone in possible holiday preparations. I also hoped I was still young and poor enough to take advantage of lower DIY standards.

I set about trying to mimic a plausible Christmas setting, mostly using materials I already had. I cut out snowflakes. I used glitter glue on dollar store stockings. I made lasagna because the idea of making a turkey at that age seemed impossible. And I guess, at the last minute, I felt the holiday sparkle in my apartment was too sparse. My tacky, fantastic aluminum garland was born. I nailed it proudly to the oak molding surrounding my inoperable, but decorative fireplace. This action later cost me my security deposit.

My parents remember this visit fondly as my first successful holiday offering to the world. I largely remember the stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome. As expected, they offered soul-crushing analysis on my job, my girlfriend, our cats, and my hair and wardrobe, but they granted me conciliatory praise for my Christmas decorations, like it was a hand-drawn card taped on the refrigerator of their heart. When that Christmas was finally over, I kept the aluminum garland. It’s survived at least a dozen moves and as many girlfriends. It’s crushed and misshapen. The twinkly lights don’t work anymore. The ribbons are decaying. But its presence is a holiday imperative in my house, lest I personally destroy the spirit of Christmas by disregarding queer superstition.

The ad agency copywriters who created every memorable Christmas special had to be gay. I still cry every year when all the Peanuts gather around Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree to sing and when Rudolph runs away with a dissident dentist elf because his dad was mean to him. Being queer is being the underestimated magic later rediscovered as every metaphor for the true holiday spirit. After a couple decades cultivating my queer cynicism and slowly strangling my parents’ expectations, my crappy tin garland provides a seasonal opportunity to daydream of the downfall of the dominant paradigm. Nobody likes it. Queers always throw better parties. As much as I love Martha Stewart, her flawless holiday displays are ultimately boring. They represent aspirations of idealized normative assimilation. I want to see what she made in prison.