Take This Heart Necklace and Shove It Up Your Ass

Forget all the cheesy jewelry commercials showing the loving boyfriend surprising his sleeping girlfriend with a tacky gold heart necklace and matching heart earrings. Eww! My high school/college boyfriend bought me a gold heart necklace one year with my birthstone in it. Every time I see one of those commercials, I think of the hell he put me through before he gave it to me. He had come over Christmas Eve to exchange gifts, and then he proceeded to tell me that he hadn't bought me anything. I cried; all my dreams of opening a Christmas gift from my first love were shot. I gave him a really cool wolf puppet (I know that sounds weird), but he really wanted it. I was heartbroken that he hadn't even thought of me for Christmas. The next morning, I found a little box under the tree, and when I opened it, the gold heart sparkled. Life was good again. Now, when I think back to that Christmas, I think, "What an A-HOLE! He let me cry on Christmas Eve!! Who does that??!!!" The heart necklace is stashed away somewhere or at least I think it is. I could've thrown it out. I don't need any reminders of that relationship. It was my first, and it was a complete disaster. Never date a narcissistic actor who may or may not be a manic depressive.

Another Christmas in yet another dysfunctional relationship, I received a CD in a brown paper bag. The bastard couldn't even wrap it!!! What did I give him? A beautiful sculpture of a polar bear from The Museum Company; it was a replica of some sculpture in some museum in some city. It was wrapped in shiny red paper with a luminescent white ribbon. Classy, huh? Damn right, that's how I roll. Once he gave me that brown paper bag, I should've walked out of his apartment. It would've saved me a lot of pain and time. I was an idiot. I was super in love with a total douchebag who was madly in love with some white trash chick who was married and looked like Tonya Harding on a good day. I mean, how can you hand your girlfriend a paper bag with a CD in it for her Christmas gift?? Wow. He should've just handed me a note that said, "I don't like you enough to wrap. Sorry."

My last ex worked so hard on my Christmas that it actually became more of a chore than an actual heartfelt gesture. It spoke volumes about our relationship. "Well, maybe if I get the perfect card, that says all the right things, our relationship will be good." We gave each other fabulous Christmas gifts and cards that would bring tears to your eyes. I remember he showed me how he wrapped my presents so perfectly that he matched the wrapping paper edges up to each other, so the gift appeared seamless. It must've taken him hours. I thought that was strange, sweet, but strange all the same. I made many mistakes in that relationship, and I blamed myself for a while. He was such a nice guy, and I was horrible to him. We were completely mismatched, and what we thought was love was just two desperate people trying very hard not to be alone. We were two souls looking for love and only finding bitterness and disappointment. He bought me a gorgeous necklace that Christmas. It was a silver pendant with two sparkling diamond chips; only the dumbass didn't even know they were diamonds. He had left the tag in the box, so I had seen the price. They were diamonds. He also bought me a gorgeous abalone bracelet. It fell apart right after our break-up; how fitting. I turned it into a necklace, and I wear it every now and then. It's very pretty, but I don't like wearing pieces of the past. Why would I want to wear something that reminds me of a time in my life I would rather forget?

This Christmas, I am looking forward to a nice holiday without hidden presents, paper bags, and wrapping paper for the obsessive compulsive.