KEY POINTS:
Every year as the spectre of Christmas holidays with the family rolls around I am inexplicably reminded of all my ex-boyfriends. It could have something to do with the fact that Christmas in my younger years was always the time when there was no more avoiding the fact that your parents were going to have to meet your boyfriend, even though you'd been living with him for the past 11 months.
You've run out of excuses and it can't be delayed any longer. He is going to turn up at your parents' bach, eat Christmas dinner and stay the night, in separate beds, of course.
You've made him remove the ear-rings, covered the tattoo with long sleeves and put him on an alcohol limit, but still you spend the entire 24-hour period intercepting disappointed glances between your parents, reading insults into every utterance and concluding that once again you have found someone totally unsuitable in your mother's eyes.
Or it could be that Christmas means the beach, which meant one thing for this surfie chick - romance. Which means remembering ex-boyfriends on the beach.
I was having just such a reminiscence involving several notable beaches around the country when my husband was forced to interrupt with an inquiry as to whether each beach was a different boyfriend, or all beaches were the same one. I told him it was none of his business.
Which brings me to the best reason for remembering ex-boyfriends at Christmas time. The lies they told us.
Those hours you spent timing him while he impressively completed a Rubik's cube in one minute, only to learn 30 years later from your 10-year-old daughter that there's a trick to it, it's not proof of a complex intelligent mind.
The stuff he just rolled is really, really weak. You'll hardly notice you've smoked it.
All men finish that quickly. Truly.
It's okay the Holden just blew up. Someone from somewhere will be along in the morning to tow us out. It'll be fun camping out ... for a week.
Just because his mate's girlfriend likes to surf too and you prefer to read a book doesn't mean he loves you any less. Until next week when he starts going out with her.
That all men want it again that soon.
Neil Young just takes a bit of getting used to.
Eating fresh kina roe is just like eating caviar.
All men are this size and, anyway, it's what you do with it that counts.
The Christmas present he really meant to get you got stolen off the truck at work and he hopes the box of Roses will do.
Before you he'd only slept with one other girl and she was really useless.
That hippy chick in the house truck just needs a hand with the electrics. For a whole weekend.
He really likes the way you interpret the music so skilfully with your hands while you dance.
Where did that come from? He's never done that with anyone before.
He doesn't dance, not since that thing happened with the surfboard and the shark.
Sure, he loves Carole King.
Love Story, are you kidding? That's his favourite movie!
You have great tits, all he needs is a handful, anything else is wasted.
No, he didn't tell your best friend with the double D tits that he was really after her at that party but he settled for you.
The Cheap Trick song Gonna Raise Hell says "Satan holds the keys to the lock" if played backwards.
When he gets back from Goa, things will be different.
