Christmas continued..

Yet again my enthusiasm for Christmas was failing fast.

Cracks in my relationship with LTL were tearing open faster than the San Andreas Fault in 1906. Arguing over stupid shit like my choice of tree left me dazed.

Christmas eve continued into an ever increasing whirlpool of negative vibes.

Her failure to succeed in cooking some exotic rice based desert somehow became my fault despite me having no input what so ever. For all intensive purposes it looked like rice pudding but was done in some complicated way to ensure a less than edible outcome.

With a kitchen smelling of burnt condensed milk and rice it was time to exchange gifts as that is what you do next to a spruce tree on Christmas eve in her country. Fair enough, we can play that game. Pity about the lack of spruce tree.

Again I got it all wrong. Unbeknownst to me, her take on Christmas is giving lots of individually wrapped little presents. Failure to do so is punished with the quivering lip of disappointment and misty eyed dribble about how the Douche understood how to do Christmas properly. My gift was well received but it felt that the fact that there was only one of them was looked down upon.

It probably did not help that on receiving gift number 53, a calendar full of photos of cats in the same vein as "I can has Cheezburger" that I might have suggested that a single purchase of a Playstation 3 would have fit in better with the existing decor and used less trees in wrapping paper.

Sadly, joking that I would buy my own PS3 in the boxing day sales sparked a debate over the proper spending of funds - A PS3 was frivolous and not the best use of my cash I was told. You can imagine how well that sat with me.

On that note, Christmas eve ended with an early night, some lack lustre sex and me day dreaming about kite surfing or dancing on another part of the planet.

Christmas morning dawned with the news that she was not coming to our family gathering. Wow - more surprises I thought. Christmas is just so much fun!

Would she still be here when I got back from lunch? What about all our plans for the holidays etc. Were they still on?

She did not know the answers to any of the obvious questions and with that cloud hanging over me I went to hang out with family and cop a million awkward questions while I sat at the table with an empty setting beside me.

Thankfully my younger brother and girlfriend were about to produce grand child number two so my inability to produce a girlfriend for Christmas lunch was overshadowed by my inability to breed with one too.

On the drive home I finally gave in to my dark thoughts and quietly hoped she was gone from my house when I got back. Sadly, she was still packing to leave.

I had decided on the drive home that I was not doing another relationship with a girl from far away lands that was going to turn around one day and want to go home. I did not need a girl who despite meeting every other criteria I thought I wanted, would drive me nuts with a love of cats, Christmas and directing my spending habits.

With a wave she was gone from my life.

Boxing day and the sales arrived. I did the rounds of the game stores, JB hi-fi and David Jones. After some haggling I secured a shiny new PS3 with some games and Blueray movies. No sooner did I have it plugged in and the phone rang.

"Wind is building up man...time to hit the beach" the voice on the other end nearly screamed at me. "Is the girly going to come too?"
"What girl? we split yesterday.."
"Awesome. The next few days are going to be pumping. You are better of without a hand brake!"

As much as I was sad, I had to agree. She hated the beach and thought my obsession with kite surfing was silly. I had been looking forward to the plans we had made but really, what the hell had I been thinking? It was going to be blowing 25 knots for days.

To be continued...