Elements of a dire Christmas Eve

1) Unreliable friends
The Chairman, 'surprised' by the bad traffic, was running an hour-and-a-half late for our scheduled early evening rendezvous. A couple of other people he had said would be there, people I hadn't seen for a while and was keen to catch up with, also failed to appear. I gave up on them and went elsewhere.

2) My 'stalker'
An ex that I prefer to avoid had - yet again - insinuated herself into the party I was supposed to be meeting. I couldn't face her feigned surprise, the tired old "Oh, what a surprise to see you here!" rigmarole. Yeah, right. You know these are my two closest drinking buddies; you know they're the only people I know still left in town; where the hell else would you expect me to be? Another reason to leave...

3) Thin crowds
Not much fun to be had anywhere around Sanlitun, it seemed. Everyone's gone away for the holidays. I checked out Fubar for a while, but it was pretty dead.

4) Chinese revellers
Well, thin crowds of foreigners, that is. Most bars and restaurants were thronged with young Chinese partiers. I knew from bitter experience that it wouldn't be worth trying to get in the door at most of the places I usually like to hang out around Nanluoguxiang, like Reef, or Jianghu, or the Pool Bar.

5) Appalling traffic
The huge enthusiasm of the Chinese for Christmas Eve parties meant that all the roads around the centre of the city were log-jammed for hours, and it took a long wait to get a taxi. I had been planning to go to the Christmas Eve gig at 2 Kolegas, but my enthusiasm for the idea waned as I contemplated the possibility of having to walk all the way there..... and maybe having to walk all the way back too.

6) Appalling weather
The previous 48 hours had been very mild. Unfortunately, low wind, damp air, and a temperature inversion had cranked pollution levels way up; and a long spell with no precipitation has built up huge amounts of sand and dust in the streets. On Christmas Eve, the wind started blowing savagely out of the northwest again, plunging the temperature well below freezing and scouring your eyeballs with sand. I had elected to walk home from Sanlitun - ordinarily a not unpleasant 80 or 90-minute stroll, but on this occasion an exhausting, dispiriting trudge into the teeth of the gale.

7) Luck
I might perhaps have salvaged something from the evening if I'd just gone to 12 Square Metres (comme toujours), but I had decided to surrender myself to the dice life. Not having a die on me, or a coin, I texted a friend the query 'Heads or tails?' (Try this sometime. Very liberating! You have to be disciplined about choosing your options first and sticking to them. And no "Best of three..." get-outs!) Unfortunately, he gave me the wrong answer.

8) More Chinese revellers
So, I went instead to check out my jazzy friends the No Name Trio playing at Trainspotting, a little restaurant/bar in the Fangjia Hutong development just off Andingmen. Alas, it was a thinnish crowd. And entirely Chinese. And entirely under 25. I was not inspired to stick around. I had been drawn to the option largely by the prospect of being able to have a catch-up with Terry, the barman there (an old friend from Obiwan and Room 101) - but he seems to have left.

9) Gathering gloom
I still had plenty of time to head back to 12 Square. Or Amilal. But the evening was going so poorly that I suffered a mounting pessimism that even these reliable standbys might prove to be disappointing on this night. I actually walked right up to the door of Amilal.... and coudn't bring myself to go in.

10) Inaccurate listings
I still had one hope of some entertainment. My last stop on the way home would be Jiangjinjiu. It's a Thursday, after all - Panjir should be playing. They were advertised as playing in all the listings magazines. But regular listings often get disrupted by the holidays; and repeat events tend to get hardwired into the listings, regardless of whether they are still ongoing. No Panjir this night. No band at all. Home it is, then. (Actually, Panjir don't seem to have been playing their Thursday spot there for a few weeks now - must check what's going on with that.)

11) A blast from the past
I'd just got home when Fate taunted me with a text message from one of the great loves of my life, asking if I was out. No, indeed I was not. I think she was seeking a bar recommendation rather than urging me to join her. She'd just been to a gig, so was likely to be playing the groupie with her rock musician friends - I endured enough of that when I was going out with her, thank you. A brief heart-lurch, nonetheless. What is it about Christmas that so distills the devastating sense of loneliness?

12) Pining (1)
The heart-lurch over the ex wasn't as bad as it might have been because I at least have new foci of romantic disappointment in my life these days. I realised the person I would most like to have been with, or at least been in touch with, this Christmas was The Bombshell, the lovely Swedish visitor who stole my heart back in March.

13) Pining (2)
Although I am, on balance, relieved at the news of Madame X's intended departure from China, glad to escape the prison of thwarted infatuation and the confidence-crushing torture of her perpetual spurning.... well, there is also a keen sense of regret. I miss having her here even when she's just gone home for Christmas. How much worse will it be when she's gone for good?

14) Guilt
Probably one of the key underlying reasons for my low mood on this night was the niggling sense of shame at having omitted to send Christmas cards to my young nieces this year. At least getting home by 10.30pm enabled me to arrange e-cards for them (but they're not big computer users, so I'm not sure when or if they'll ever see them).

15) No booze in the house
How could I have no booze in the house? There should always be a bottle of good whisky on hand to console you through these dismal holiday doldrums! A major oversight.

No, Christmas Eve is rarely a good night in China; but this year it was a very, very, very bad one.