Merry Christmas and happy holidays

Hi Everyone,
First off I'd like to wish everyone Happy Holidays and may your new year bring you only joy and peace. This is the first time in 2 days I've had a chance to really sit down at the computer and spend any time at it. Preparing for Christmas has made it a very busy time as I'm sure it has been for all of you. I have also spent time this week looking back at the year and the more I do this, the more I realize how lucky I am. I'm much happier than I was last year about this time. I have the support of my family in my transition. And most of all, I have built some strong friendships this year that I'm sure will help me in the coming years. I also found myself becoming more active in trans related issues and look to do much more in the future.

Yesterday we had our family Christmas party which went pretty well. We didn't have a traditional Christmas meal since my wife is Philippino, but this is nothing new for us. We did have some great food though and we spent the evening eating, dancing and chatting a way. It was going well tell later that evening. As we do every year, they had planned on going to Church for the midnight Christmas mass, and as the evening drew closer to the time to leave I found myself getting more uncomfortable and a little more emotional (although I hid it). I've never really felt like this before in all the years that we've done this. But last night was the first time that I just didn't want to be there. With the recent Pope's Christmas speech suggesting the Transsexuals were a threat to humanity, I could not put aside my feelings on that as I sat there in the church. Needless to say, I made it through the service, said my own prayers before leaving and felt better once we got back to my brother inlaws. I'll have more to say abouut this in a later post.

Today was a calmer day. I spent time with my family, but since my wife got called into work, we tried to spend some time together in the morning just enjoying each others company. I was invided to a Christmas party for one of the few LGBT youth homeless shelters in NYC. I felt very strongly about going with everything that has been going on in the LGBT community recently, so my friend Brittney and I went down to spend some time with the kids (13 to 22). I am so glad I went because it gave me a chance to talk to a few of the kids there. I didn't have a chance to talk to as many as I'd like, but the few I did talk to left a impression on me that will stay with me for the rest of my life. One girl named Starr, really made the biggest impression on me as she just glowed with a spirit that was really catchy. I'd love to get back there some time and talk to her more, but with so many of her friends there, it was hard to talk to long with her. So Starr, if you ever have a chance to read this, always keep that possitive outlook and I'm sure you will go far.

If you are in the Tri-state NY area please support this orginization, they could use all the help that they can get. They run this shelter out of the basement of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York. Its a small place to house up to 40 youth. So if you can, please contact the emergancy shelter and offer any help that you can:
MCCNY Homeless Youth Services
446 West 36th Street
New York, NY 10018
212-629-7440 Ext. # 226

P.S. Thanks for listening and I hope everyone have a great Holidays.
Hugs Michelle