Christmas at home brings with it the pressure to dress festive
which is code for 'girly': a party frock or a Christmas day outfit.
I musn't disappoint the line of uncles desperate to sing their
annual chorus of, "Woo hoo look at you," or the more charmingly
phrased, "You scrub up well," when I enter the room in anything
other than jeans.
My mum too loves to see me, "make an effort". If my chosen outfit
feels somehow lacking she will push a series of pashminas, and
scarves on me like some sort of crazed silk dealer desperate to get
me hooked on accessories. "I've got a lovely bangle that will look
nice with that. Look how nice. Just try it! Go on. Try it. Try.
It." getting more insistant. Once it's on my wrist she'll admire it
endlessly all night, "That suits you. Doesn't that suit her? That
suits you. You should wear more jewellery."
My mum's mission in life, when I was younger, was to get me to
dress in 'feminine' clothes. She went about it with the ardent zeal
of someone utterly convinced that if she could only get me to stay
in a dress long enough all would be well. Poor mum finally accepted
defeat when I came home wearing a 'Meat is Murder' T-shirt I'd
bought from Afflecks Palace.
If I'm caught musing over which black shirt to wear to the
Christmas nibbles the response comes back whip sharp, "Your
sister's wearing a dress." The gauntlet has not only been thrown
down it's been colour co-ordinated. When I do put on a wear a dress
or a little floaty number, I'll catch my mum starring at me with a
faraway look in her eye, like a contestant on Bulls Eye as Jim
Bowen turns the board round to show them what they could have
won.
Over Christmas and New Year I'll no doubt attend a few dressy
drinks parties, but 'don me not my gay apparel'. No way. My
family will encourage me to the spirit of the season and wearing
something more "cheerful" and "Christmassy" - like a Santa suit. "I
thought this was a celebration not a wake." my dad will smirk. My
concession to Christmas this year is wearing washed out festive
grey rather than a darker shade of lesbian black. Okay so it's not
a pom-pom festooned bouclé red cardigan, but an All Saints sparkly
skull T-Shirt is my nod to this sequined season.
The Rubbish Lesbian will return on 4 January.
Read her column every month in DIVA magazine
