Gay Partners Ted and Drew Brave The Great American Christmas

The USA Network’s Great American Christmas, a two-hour, unscripted reality program, examines the real-life, home-for-the-holidays drama as seen through the eyes of six very different American families. One of the six family segments features gay partners Ted and Drew from Los Angeles. When Ted brings Drew home to meet his conservative, Southern Baptist family in rural, southern Illinois, many of the expected roadblocks arise, but so does a powerful family story.

Their trip to visit Ted’s family during Christmas 2005 is Ted’s first attempt to bring a boyfriend home for the holidays. Although Ted’s family knows he is gay, they have never really accepted him as such, and his family members react with visibly awkward politeness as they try to accept Drew.

During the course of the holiday, Ted takes Drew to visit some of his favorite childhood spots, including a drive by his estranged father’s farm (Ted’s dad does not accept his being gay) and a painfully brief stop at the family’s traditional cutting-down-of-the-tree event (which reveals Ted’s difficulties with his brother, Bobby, who is opposed to meeting Drew).

In one of the film’s most poignant scenes, Ted brings Drew to visit his old grade school, where they meet several of Ted’s former schoolteachers in a teary-eyed reunion. It’s clear that Ted’s kind, nonjudgmental former teachers made a lasting impression on him, and Ted tells them how much they meant to him during his childhood.

The producers of The Great American Christmas, who are also behind the lens of MTV’s Laguna Beach, combine a flexible style of reality production with well-paced storytelling that gives this show a fresh and unpredictable feel. At a time when much reality TV seems fake and over-the-top, the Ted and Drew segment of The Great American Christmas manages to come off feeling very real. Many gay couples will relate to Ted and Drew’s experience and be moved by it. We recently talked with Ted and Drew about their experience.

AfterElton.com: How did you first meet each other?
Ted: We first met on Gay.com and have been together for two and a half years. I found my soul mate, best friend and life partner.

AE: When did you first come out to your families? How did the process go?
Ted: I was 24 — I’m 36 now. When I first told them, I really thought they already knew. But my mom tells me they didn’t. What you see in the film is really one of the first incidences of my family having to deal with it. I had chosen for all these years for my family to not have to address it. They knew I was “out” and living a gay lifestyle — but this was it. The film shows my brother’s, my father’s, my stepfather’s — everybody’s first real experience of Ted being gay.

Drew: I came out relatively late in life — I was 26 when I came out to myself. At around 30, I started coming out to my close friends. By then it was pretty much a nonissue. My mom was totally OK with it — she just wanted me to be happy and find a life partner. Growing up in Southern California, I experienced things a lot differently than Ted did. My family knew people who were gay and lesbian. It wasn’t like a big foreign thing to them that was never even thought about. Having a gay son was OK in our culture.

AE: How were you two chosen to represent the gay segment of Great American Christmas?
Ted: They auditioned us for three months. They asked us about how we normally celebrate Christmas. They were aware in advance that we would be visiting around town, shopping and going to cut down a Christmas tree. We had a good rapport with the producers. They were interviewing hundreds of people.

AE: Drew, you were in the difficult position of being the “guess who’s coming to Christmas dinner” guest in the film. You remain so patient and quiet. … You seem like you have been through this before. Have you?
Drew: This is my first long-term relationship and the first time I’ve met my partner’s relatives. It was all brand new to me, and I didn’t know what to expect.