“I want three naked girls and a huge bed to use them on,” Jude said with a cigar in his mouth.

Vail rolled her eyes and dealt the next round of cards. “That’s disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting,” he snapped.

We were in Victor’s or Samuel’s or Michael’s or Whatever His Name’s house playing poker.

I looked at my cards and then looked at the flop. “For Christmas, I want to win this game tonight. I could really do with the money.”

“You’re always so poor, Dean,” Jude said. “Stop being so fucking poor.”

Wendy, one of the girls there, sighed. “I fold. For Christmas, I want a business class trip to Japan. Actually, a business class trip anywhere would be great. I just want to get away from work.”

Some guy in the kitchen yelled out to us. “Guess what Ross got his girlfriend for Christmas.”

“What?”

“Placemats.”

Vail didn’t get it. “What’s wrong with placemats? She might’ve just really needed placemats.”

“It was a shit present, Vail. She was really upset about it.”

“Anyway,” I faced Vail. “What do you really really want for Christmas?”

“A boyfriend.”

Jude laughed. “Don’t you already have like, four boyfriends right now?”

“Shut up,” she slapped his arm. “I want a man who can take care of me until the day I die. A tall, semi-wealthy guy who has a safe and secure accounting job.”

“This year was a fucked up year,” Jude said. “This life has been a fucked up life. I can’t believe I’ve had sex with you before.”

“First world problems,” I said. “They’re terrible.”

Wendy took a drink of wine. “I’d like, hate to be a Muslim or be one of those African kids right now. Have you like, seen Homeland?”

“I wish everyone celebrated Christmas. It’s just so fun.”

“I can’t stand Christmas. Everything is so fake and our mailbox is always cluttered with junk mail.”

“I don’t care about that. I like the feeling of Christmas. I’d love to be in New York right now, ice skating in that famous ice skating place. What’s it called again?”

“Did you hear about what happened to those school kids?”

“Yeah, oh my gosh, that was like, so sad.”

“I don’t get why people need guns.”

“I don’t get why I keep losing. Fuck!”

“I’m just glad the world didn’t end. I still have an exam to finish.”

“Like, when do you think the world will actually end?”

Other wishes included a JB Hi-Fi gift voucher, a bigger penis, the complete Twilight book set, an iPad Mini, a Rolex, smaller arms, bigger arms, a thousand bucks. Christmas in Brisbane isn’t like Christmas in the movies. It’s hot and humid and people keep complaining about how it’s hot and humid and everyone walks around wearing as little as possible. For Christmas I gave Jude a small bag of marijuana; I gave Vail a DVD of a movie she really wanted to watch again: Mean Girls. The game went on for another hour or so and by some Christmas miracle I won: thirty two dollars in gold coins.