12 Things to Consider when Buying Christmas Gifts for that Special Gay in Your Life

"Gay apparel"

So Christmas is upon us. Can you smell the pine needles in the office cubicles from over enthusiastic interior decorators trying to blend that line between "work" and "life?" Have you been accosted by the Salvation Army bell ringers' guilt trips? Have you reconciled your displeasure in the fact that the holiday season remains a commercialized blitzkrieg and has now even abandoned human interaction for the sterility of online shopping? Welcome. You are home.

But the people love the toys! How can you resist!? And that's what I want to talk about today: what to give the people for Christmas who mean the most to you (i.e. your gay friends).

Gays are a picky people; I should know--I've dated tons of them. So don't just pull up any national known brand name website and purchase, wrap, and deliver a $25 gift card: they are looking for something more than just your average perfunctory gifting! What's worse, they will punish you if you don't succeed! So, with great care (first thing to come in my head), I have assembled the 12 things that everyone should know when purchasing Christmas presents for the Gays, capital "G".

12. No matter what you think, it is too pedestrian. Wal-mart, Costco...The Sharper Image, I'm looking at you. Don't do it people! Don't give the gift of popcorn barrels and chocolate boxes, it's just so drab! If you're going to go through the trouble of even buying a present at least don't include it between your trips to get groceries and squirrel feed. And don't think these novelty gift stores where you go to buy 8 cylinder massage chairs are any different. They exist for you, the lazy, who has to have someone else tell them what is "soooooo hot" right now. We're going to make you better than that!

11. If you give the same present to another friend, you might as well include the receipt. Look, we gays understand that we aren't the only nephew on your Christmas list and we understand that there are the three other male and six other female young adults you're buying for, we can tend to get bunched together. They're all Millenials! Gen Y! Entitled little pricks! We're all the same really, so you can just buy us all iPod Nano's right? As if they were still cool. No! Take the time to at least act like you have insight into my personality. That way I won't just take the receipt and return it for some Day after Christmas Sale credit on eBay.

10. Always Include the Receipt Anyway. Who was I kidding, I'm just going to return it for Day after Christmas Sale credit on eBay.

9. A Good Wrapping Job is Worth at Least an Extra $75 in Value. Crisp edges, laced ribbon, custom made gift tags; these are what we're looking for people! What you think that just because I am 24 and only have two years left on your Obamasurance that I don't like ripping into the most perfectly constructed 90 degree angles I've seen since the seventh grade? Shoot. Don't just bag and crepe paper it either; I'm looking for effort here, and it's already clear the contents of said present are not going to impress me. You can control this. Own it.

8. Gifts Tangential to Alcohol are Preferred-But Don't Make it Fucking Obvious There is a way into the gays heart, and unlike straights, (fatties), it's not the stomach, it's the liver. Oh, so you thought Manhattan was a New York City borough? Looks like we have some drinking to do. But for Santa's sakes, don't wrap up a Jose Cuervo handle! So neanderthal. What are you thinking? Here, this is what the exchange looks like: buy some nice glassware, martini glasses for instance, a board game that "everyone in Provincetown is playing right now" and schedule a game night. That's it. "COSMOS GURLS!" says one of the gays. And everyone's happy. See that? That's manipulation into us thinking you weren't already planning that. End scene.

7. Your Gift Will Inescapably Be Used to Estimate Your Wealth Guys? Guys? Guys? Can I talk to you for a second please?! There's some things that we need to discuss. When you're at a White Elephant party, don't buy a discount Snuggie because you think it's just SO ironic. Yeah it's purple and everyone had their open back shower rugs draping off their arms for about a year. Don't do it. Your need for monetary affirmation is better than that. You can't let this opportunity to "accidentally forget the $15 limit" pass you by! Because I certainly won't. "What's that? You think the components of my homemade wine and cheese picnic set retail over $90? SHUT UP!" No but really they do, because I can.

6. Plants, Fish, Cats, Dogs, and Children are Expressly Prohibited Gift Ideas We don't do "daily displays of responsibility;" the orchid looks better as my iPad wallpaper.

5. Know Your Musicals We're getting down to the critical points now. For god's sake, if you're going to step into the realm of musical theater, you better be ready to play. Bette Midler may be everything to every gay born before 1975 but she means jack shit to me. Wicked, on the other hand, is trending VERY well now in the younger demographic. Hair and West Side Story are nice for the elitists. Andrew Lloyd Weber usually doesn't disappoint. Best option: just buy the Glee soundtracks.

4. When Possible, Avoid Books Hmmm, how do I say this? Books are great for planes, ellipticals, and "coffee days." We're smart, we've read The Picture of Dorian Gray just like the next guy...well... Anyways, books don't, however, serve much good when getting dolled up for amateur strip night over a row of sugared lemon drops, and if you think I'm talking candy, please refer to number 8. Audio Book? Great! iPad compatible? Wonderful! I'll get to it during my Miami layover. Just don't expect a book report anytime soon.

3. Ornately Decorated Home Baked Assorted Pastries will Buy you Sainthood "Oh.My.God. Did you bake these macarons yourself? Are those edible crystals? Glitter?! And the little box! Love! It!" The preceding reactions will ensure that you have the most unique and envied gift among your gay giving peers. Now just go spend a couple months figuring out how to bake that, or just buy some from your Beard Award Winning local bakery, and refer to number 9 for some personalized wrapping tips.

2. Never Buy Clothes, Your Aesthetic is Wrong Just don't. I don't want to wear your turtle necks no matter how many Brad from the Rachel Zoe Project wore. And don't say you consulted GQ, like that costs more than $10 bucks in print, free online. You're not winning any points here. In every case, you cannot win. I don't want your clothes. Go. Go. Where's the receipt? Macy's? And you now look cheap. The ritual of shopping is sacred among gays and as lookers-on you must honor its sanctity.

1. Giving the Gift of Jeans Two Sizes Too Small, Along with the Comment, "But you always look so good in skinny jeans!" Will Procure You Eternal Love. Finally, the most important rule for buying gifts for gays, the gift of assumed skinniness. Yeah, I don't "fit" into Ben Sherman. Yeah, I "grew out of size small" in the third grade. You don't know that. And if you do, now's not the time to come clean. It is paramount that you, as the neanderthal, view rule 2 in light of rule 1: rule 1 is not the gift of clothes. It is the gift of giving a gay what every boy dreams of: a size 24 waist. You know by now that I'll be returning it, and that you have no sense of style. Just let me look at it, hold it up, look at the inside tag, and proclaim "yep, you know my size!" in front of all my boys. I will never try it on, I will never even conjure up outfits. I will dream of fitting into its tight inseams and dance alone naked to Glee's cover of "Don't Stop Believing" with some crap chocolate I bought on the way home from Whole Foods. Done.

Well that's it, now you know what you need to do in the next week for all the gays in your life!

The 'Glee' Approach vs. The 'Weekend' Approach

Recently, I experienced two different artistic experiences of injecting "the gays" onto screens (and yes, gays are still being injected. We're not just there, the way Cinderella stories run rampant in rom-coms or zombies run through theme parks. But we're getting there). For gays, the way this happens can be touchy: a marketing campaign with too many cooks in the kitchen. Do you go hard or soft? Peaceful protest or demanding rights, right now?

Well, that's the fun part right?

My first of two recent experiences I am sure you will be familiar with: Glee. What are your thoughts? Is it over the top "gay in your face" agenda pounding propaganda? Or is it just a modernized version of Saved by the Bell? It's not a staple of my weekly entertainment intake, but when I heard last week's episode was to gush over, complete with boot knocking frenzy, I figured I would take a peek. Glee's director and creative mastermind, Ryan Murphy, has been "bold" on projecting "real" gay characters into his series...yes...Kurt and Blaine have done so much as kiss, rub noses, and canoodle fully clothed on their bed. Groundbreaking, right? As one of my gay coworkers put it, "if that's what America thinks we do, they'll all be in for a big surprise."

But, yes, it is groundbreaking, sort of, and I have to give Murphy some credit. He's a "victim of the times" so to speak. Gays are going through their 1950's right now where shared beds on TV is still a display of hedonism, and where a candid portrayal of a gay person growing up "out" and confident, is an affront to people's world paradigms. So I give him credit, mainly because he's getting the ball rolling. Am I happy that such confidence in gays comes from a show flagrantly devoted to musicals, pop culture, and sex? Maybe not, but I also know that part of changing people's thoughts also requires starting on known territories.

Gays like musicals. Fine.

However, despite the kids gloves handling of the issues, these characters are reaching one of the widest audiences ever. So, that is the first approach, we'll call it The 'Glee' Approach.

Now, my second experience was a little more... brazen. I went to an indie film called "Weekend," and boy was it a treat. The aptly named film takes place over 48 hours from the end of a drunk Friday outing at"Propaganda," a gay night club in Nottingham, UK, through to the end of Sunday. After meeting on the dance floor, two attractive gay men spend the weekend doing everything from sex, to coke, to bumper cars, to amateur art exhibits. But most importantly, they spend the bulk of the film discussing what it means to be gay in a world meant for straight people.

Essentially, the movie is one big meta piece of art.

The more vocal of the two gay men proclaims at one point, "straight people will go to movies about, war, disease, murder, and rape, but if it has gay sex....whoa! they can't go to that. Only the gays will come." And of course, I looked around the theater to see only the prophesied pockets of gay men watching the film. Was it true though? Does gay sex stop straight people from coming in the theater better than a defensive line, or was this just a case of gay people flocking inordinately to see representations of themselves on the big screen? Who knows?

The film's voracious, thought provoking instigator works at the more reserved protagonist as he struggles with his own sexuality. And indeed, in the end, the movie certainly pushed me, an out gay man, to think even further about ideas of self loathing, pride, gay activism, etc. If the Glee Approach had kids gloves on, the Weekend Approach came wielding a sharpened bayonet, at least in terms of pushing gay characters into ultra representative settings. And the actors were spectacular as well.

So then, what do you think is the correct way to continue injecting gay characters into story lines? Should we stay slow, allowing the general public time to acclimate to the warm water before turning up the heat? Or should we push them in, knowing nerves may be singed, but hey, this is life, get over it? I would love to hear your thoughts.