#ILoveYou #YouLoveHer

#Christmas

Michelle

Christmas starts in September in the Philippines. As in the first day of the ber months (which also happens to be my birthday), the malls are all decked out in Christmas decorations and started their infinite Christmas songs playlist.

For me, living in a different country from all my family and friends, I start religiously checking plane ticket prices. Then I'd book a holiday for myself (the length of my holiday varies on how much I love or hate my job at that point).

Taiwan doesn't celebrate Christmas, like at all (as in Christmas is a work day), the only places that has some semblance of Christmas are malls and Starbucks (even with its plain red cups).

So I'd use the excuse the whole I'm Protestant (I used to play angels during Christmas plays) thing to take a break from work. And of course, the whole I only see my family once a year excuse, works too.

Then I'd fly back and boy space friend, Nate will plan a fancy dinner and then we'd all stay over at some fancier hotel, where we would exchange gifts and then catch up on a years worth of gossip.

And then I'd go to the beach with my mom, where we could build snowmen out of sand and make snow angels (could, but of course, we never did that). We'd just chill by the beach and do absolutely positively nothing.

But this year is different. Because this year, I moved back home, so Christmas, I suppose is not really a reunion anymore. It's just some normal holiday and you'd just hang out with people that you just had dinner with last weekend.

Mostly, this year is different because boy space friend upgraded himself to boyfriend, except not mine. It's kind of weird that the guy that you thought would end up with yourself at the end of the day (a day in a very distant future), ended up with someone else.

"So how do you plan to top your Christmas present for Tia this year ?" I asked boy space friend, whose couch I have been taking over since I moved back (more in a psych-sofa kind of a way than a bum-this-is-where-I-live kind of way).

He shrugged, "Maybe the latest iPhone this year?"

Yup, nothing says "I love you" like the latest gadgets.

"But you gave her that when you weren't even dating. Now that you two are finally and officially a couple, shouldn't it be... more?"

I kind of missed it when it was me that was getting the extra special presents from him. But no, he started giving me stock presents (you know, stock presents, like cookies or mugs or photo frames with some stranger's default stock pic), after I rejected him was, way back then.

"I've actually been giving her gifts since a month ago," he replied.

"Really?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "Where's my presents?"

"I don't love you anymore," he answered with a smirk.

"Did you use the L word?" I teased with an eyebrow raised.

"Nope. Pretend you didn't hear anything," he said.