Last year, I spent Christmas Eve getting packages in order, chattering excitedly about the big day ahead, and drifting off to sleep way past my bedtime. Come Christmas Day, though, you wouldn’t find me opening presents by a tree or singing carols with the folks. Instead, I boarded a plane with four friends and spent the holidays in Paris, thousands of miles away.

Although I wasn’t contemplating it while catching snowflakes underneath the spires of Notre-Dame, my choice of holiday was more typical of gay men and lesbians of my age and economic status than I had imagined. Google “gay Christmas travel”, and you’ll be inundated with ads pitching everything from Vegas getaways to tropical cruises. There’s a huge market catering to those of us who are often disinclined to spend the holidays with family--indeed, to those of us who often can’t.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member kwasiak.

As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, gay people tend to have a harder time fitting their lives into traditional family functions than straight people, and the holidays particularly illustrate this point. I took an informal poll of about 40 gay and lesbian friends and acquaintances of mine, and found that less than half plan to visit relatives this holiday season. Most had either made travel plans that didn’t involve family (destinations ranged from the exotic Amazon to gay-friendly locales like Puerto Vallarta and San Francisco), or simply plan to spend the holidays at home or with friends.

My contact, Jerry, at gay and lesbian market research firm Community Marketing, Inc., shared some relevant statistics. Among gay and lesbian respondents to their 12th Annual Gay and Lesbian Tourism Survey, only 24% traveled during December last year. Many of these gay holiday travelers head to ski resorts, warm weather destinations, or to vacation homes (10.4% of lesbians and 8.4% of gay men in Community Marketing, Inc.’s Gay and Lesbian Consumer Index report owning a vacation home). Some even celebrate in more exotic locales, like Rio. I’m not one to pooh-pooh gay Paris, but that’s definitely something to oh là là about.