Christmas Eve Surprise

Growing up, my father’s family gathered at his sisters’/my aunts’ home for Christmas Eve dinner. With eight uncles and aunts and their children/my cousins and as time passed, my cousins’ children, it was quite a crowd. 

It was always a fun reunion, but it came to an abrupt end about 20 years ago when my aging aunts threw in the towel. It was more than they could handle as they approached their eighties. 

During the ensuing years, my parents and most of my uncles and aunts died. Meanwhile, many of my cousins moved out of state. There was talk of organizing Christmas Eve reunions, but nothing ever came of it. 

However, in the past few years, my out-of-state cousins moved back to Connecticut and around Thanksgiving, my cousin Jack phoned me wondering if I’d help him organize a Christmas Eve reunion to be held at my surviving aunt’s home – just like the good old days. My aunt would not have to lift a finger; her nieces and nephews would put it all together. So I marked my calendar for a Christmas Eve reunion and did my part. 

Although I was close to most of my cousins, none of them knew about Stana. I had not come out to that side of my family and was hesitant to do so because I was the oldest cousin. By default, my cousins looked up to me and I did not want to ruin their image of me... the oldest and more importantly, male cousin.

Coming out to them was on my to-do list and the reunion would provide an opportunity to come out to them all at once. I considered how well coming out to my co-workers had gone even though they were used to knowing my male side for nearly a quarter century. I thought that maybe my family would be just as accepting: it is just old cousin Stan with a greatly improved fashion sense. I thought about it for a few days and decided to do it if my wife was okay with it. 

After 40 years of marriage to a femulator, my wife had seen it all and my Christmas Eve coming out idea was like water off a duck’s back. She said go for it and now came the hard part: deciding what to wear.

Since no one at the reunion had ever seen me en femme, I could wear anything from my vast wardrobe and it would be new to them. But I wanted to wear something I had never wore out before, so that narrowed the selection to about 20 dresses. Considering the frigid weather forecast for Christmas Eve, that eliminated all my short sleeve and sleeveless dresses, so the pickings got slimmer.

I finally settled on a turquoise three-quarter sleeve peplum dress that I purchased from Avon years ago, but had never worn because it was too tight. Now that I was 30 pounds slimmer, it was a perfect fit. I accessorized with my snakeskin Nine West four-inch high heels pearl jewelry. To top it off, I wore my three-quarter-length lynx fake fur from Lane Bryant. I thought I looked very presentable for my unveiling.

My wife and I got in the Subaru and I drove across town to my aunt’s home. Arriving at my aunt’s, I noticed all the vehicles parked in her driveway and on the street in from of her home. I assumed everyone had already arrived, so I would have a big audience for my grand entrance.

We exited my car and walked the short walk up the handicapped ramp to my aunt’s front door, rang the doorbell and someone opened the door to let us in. My wife entered first with me right behind with a nervous smile pasted on my face.

The front room was crowded with aunts, cousins and their kids and as I entered, I heard my cousin Sandra say, “Holy s**t!” Always the sharpest pencil in the box, Sandra recognized me immediately, but it took awhile for the others to get a clue. If my wife had not accompanied me, I think a few would have never figured me out.

All eyes were on me and I heard a couple of wows from the crowd and my Aunt Candace remarked, “Stanley, you are beautiful!”

Cousin Billy took our coats and one by one, each cousin congratulated me with handshakes and hugs (from the guys) and air kisses and hugs from the women. 

The children of my cousins remained clueless. I might have seen them briefly on Christmas Eve 20 or more years ago, but except for some family resemblance, they were unrecognizable to me. However, they were polite and accepted me as the lady with an unusual female name (Stanley). 

No one asked me if I used a female name and everyone called me Stanley, Stan, Stash or Stashu, the latter two being Polish nicknames for Stanley.

Cousin Sandra apologized for her earlier exclamation. She admitted that she only reacted that way because I was the second coming out she had to deal with that day. With that, she said, “Let me introduce you to Jacqueline.” With that, she waved over a pretty woman who I assumed was a neighbor, who I did not recognize or know. 

“Hi Jacqueline. Pleased to meet you.”

“Pleased to meet you too, Stana. You probably know me better as your cousin Jack.”

“OMG,” I thought, “My cousin Jack is a crossdresser, too. But how did he know my femme name?”

“I’m a big fan and read your blog everyday,” he remarked, “Your blog helped me come out to the family today.”

Suddenly, I was distracted because my feet felt like they were entangled in something. And they were entangled in something: the skirt of my nightie. So I untangled my feet and fell back to sleep.

Wearing Venus

Eve is reddy for the holidays

Mindy posing in her favorite Christmas dress near the tree.