Bring Cheer to Queers: Host an Autostraddle Holigay Party This December!

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The holiday season is about love and togetherness, so why don’t we spend it together? Sprinkled in-between the holiday magic of consumerism, family gatherings that might provoke extreme stress, and the depths of seasonal affective disorder, a couple of hours with your fellow ‘straddlers can go a long way.

This December, keep it queer and full of cheer. Host an Autostraddle Holigay Party in your city!

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Last year, Autostraddle readers partied for good at HoliGAY meet-ups around the world with their chosen queer families, close friends, and probably a few cats. This year, we’re doing it all over again!

Hosting an Autostraddle Holigay Party in your city is as simple as a sugarplum. Just set a date, make a Facebook event (not required, but recommended), and mosey on over to our events portal to tell us the details and get the event posted on our calendar. You can even click here to download a custom image for your Facebook event, and once you register we’ll send over some more graphics to help you promote your party all over social media.

If you’re afraid of hosting, don’t be! Your holigay celebration doesn’t need to take place on a private resort or involve a walking, talking snowman to earn our respect. You can keep it simple and make brunch or dinner reservations at a neighborhood hangout, get personal and have some folks over your place for dancing and drinks, or just go with your gut and get gussied up to go out on the town.

There’s no format for these parties, and there are no rules (except maybe, y’know, being really f*cking awesome to each other once you get there). Live your dreams! And also, live your truths. Because that’s important to me.

We’ll be announcing all of the parties on December 1, so be sure to make plans now if you want to host! If you’re looking for inspiration, check out our holigay craft and clothing ideas from seasons of yore like 2013, 2012, and 2011, follow our holigay board on Pinterest, and keep an eye on the front page of this really revolutionary website, Autostraddle Dot Com, which I heard through the grapevine will be providing you with fashion advice, recipes, and decoration ideas galore as your party nears. How magical!

Until December comes, you can find your fellow ‘straddlers, share your party ideas, and generally express holiday delight with reckless abandon by using the hashtag #HappyHoligays. I’ll be watching that hashtag and checking it twice until the whole gosh darn season comes to a sad end, so HOP ON IT.

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Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

76 Comments

  1. ALRIGHT OC STRADDLERS AND LA STRADDLERS I’ve been wanting to do some sort of pre-Christmas pre-Hanukkah crafting/present wrapping/eating and drinking get together party thing; does brunchtime on the 6th or 13th of December sound okay? I can host at my house! I’ll post something on the fb groupm, too!

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  4. Western NY and Central NY take note, I’m bringing the straddleverse to Rochester, NY! Details coming soon, but if you live near-ish Rochester (or Buffalo or Syracuse), I’d love to meet you!

    So don’t make it weird and like it’s just me and my boo and the cat. I’d be sad. Let’s do this!

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  7. I’ll be in PDX Dec 7th-14th, Boston/Cambridge area 15th-21st, and Buenos Aires for the rest of the year… So I wouldn’t be able to host, but I’d love to get as much holigay goodness in my life as possible!!

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    • Tacoma here. I’d also be interested in something in the south sound area (Tacoma, Seattle, or some parts of the east side), but not hosting. I’m still in the closet to most people and fairly introverted, so hosting an event would be pretty far out of my comfort zone at this point in time. But I’d love to meet some people here. :) (And of course, happy to help contribute to food.)

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      • so a few options:

        we could have some kind of brunch/drinks meetup at the type of place that is insufficiently fussy so we could bring things like cookies and whatever to share, or just get festive brunch (there are a few places in georgetown that might be a reasonable distance, idk)

        we could designate a meetup (I am sort of obsessed with renting rooms for free at the library lately), tho I don’t know the library’s stance on cookies

        alternatively, I could host, tho I live in fairly far north Seattle and it’s not super accessible by transit, also we have a doofy medium-sized dog, but our house is cozy and we could make a fire, so.

        What do y’all think?

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        • Any of those sound good to me. I’m all for cheap stuff, so free library rooms sound great. And I have a car, so commuting isn’t a huge issue for me. Your house and dog sound awesome, if you’re willing to put in the extra work of having it at your place. But of course, I don’t speak for everyone.

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        • I’d be pretty much ok with whatever.

          I think Chuck’s Hop Shop lets you bring your own food, but I’m not sure how well cookies and beer go together. We could probably also convince to let the Asgard Tavern let us have food (they’re super chill), but again with the beer thing.

          I also have a car and could probably give rides to 2-3 people who don’t (to wherever it ends up being), but not super in to driving all over the suburbs.

          Depending on when it is and how many people there would be, I *may* be able to host a small-ish thing … but my place isn’t incredibly large.

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  23. I just wanna drag some humans not from NOLA that live here to Celebration in the Oaks, but alas it is at night and I have no form of driver’s license what so ever or even a facebook.

    It’s in City Park and you can take the Canal streetcar line down to NOMA and walk but it’s a night event and I don’t want to possibly put anyone in a dangerous situation trying to get home at night alone.

    I wish I had a commerical driver’s license and a bus so I could pick pick people at pre-agreed upon points and have jug of mulled cider in the back and some gingerbread to pass around.
    Holigay party bus….damnit I have too many good thoughts that require more cash than I gots.
    Any NOLA peeps got any better ideas for this?
    Cause its fucking beautiful and I need to shaaaaare.

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