Xmas hooha

-Snowman by Shrigley

Dun dun dunnn... the annual Christmas family dinner. My parents and brother flew from their respective cities. The celebration is usually held at my granny's, but she's fragile and just too old now (her opinion), so this year it was to be held at my aunt's. My religious extremist aunt's. Lets just call her Bitch from Hell.

My boyfriend has no family to spend Christmas with. His father abandoned him at birth, and his mother beat him viciously from before he could walk, until he was old enough to run away. That was about 20 years ago. He has nothing to do with her now.

It's a shit time of year for people without families. I wanted to spend the day with him and my family.

My mum rang to let Bitch from Hell know that I wanted to bring my partner. She said no. She wanted to "keep the numbers down".

I was sure that once she realised the situation, and that he's kind of important to me, not some fuckbuddy, it wouldn't be a problem. But yeah, I was wrong.

I rang her myself, and it soon became clear that Bitches from Hell can be quite creative:

"I'm a single woman living alone, I don't want a strange man in my house."

"If he doesn't have family he's obviously used to spending Christmas alone, it's not as if another Christmas by himself will be a change."

"If you were married, then it would be a different story."

Aha. The truth.

So sadly, I missed out on seeing my granny, uncle, other aunt, cousin (her son) and his wife, and my teen second cousin. Not to mention parents and brother. None of them thinks like her about "living in sin". But no one was willing to rock the boat.

It was the first Christmas my boyfriend got presents. And he got lots. All from me. We did the santa stocking thing, ate a pile of pancakes, and had a huge shot.

It was lovely, but the fact that one relative had managed to exclude me from my family due to an out-dated judgement of my morality, that wasn't so lovely.

Sickeningly, she feels sanctimonious about the whole thing, because jesus is on her side. I wish I could make my aunt see how fucking unchristian-like her behaviour has been.

Any ideas?

Meow

I woke up to the sound of glass shattering.

My boyfriend was already standing at the open window. It's hot now, and we sleep with the windows wide. The pussy cat can jump in and out that way too, which saves me being his door attendant through the night.

Then the alarms went off. The corner store we live above was being broken into. I lay very still, listening.

My boyfriend had woken up to them arguing outside. There were three of them, one sensible, who thought it was a shit idea.

"What are you, are fucking pussy?" The other (non-pussy?) said. That was enough, of course. Boys.

My boyfriend closed the windows against the alarm, after watching them run off down the street.

The police arrived 5 minutes later, and stood around outside. The alarm switched off.

There was a thump at the window and a distinctly feline shriek as the cat rebounded off the glass. His attempt at jumping through not as successful as usual. Shit. I jumped out of bed, flung open the window and peered out, blind without my contacts.

"Puss? Puss puss?"

"Do you know that cat?" The police megaphoned up.

"Uh... yes?"

"Well okay then." He sounded almost disappointed.

The robbers got away with $200 worth of cigars and an adrenalin rush. The pigs haven't caught them yet. And probably won't. If they'd circled the block after getting my boyfriend's description of them, maybe. But the cop who (very slowly) took the details barely looked old enough to drive. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the draw, that one.

My theory is drunken boys on the way home, no ciggies and the shop was shut.

This area is flash, things like that are rare. But the recession is winding people up, and with Christmas coming, it's probably just the beginning.