The Christmas Holidays Report Back
I’m sure you all don’t want a day-by-day account of my festive week off. So here’s the highlights package:
Fortunately I had finished my Christmas shopping by the 17th December or so, so Paul and I at least didn’t need to brave the malls on the weekend before Christmas other than to pick up some supplies for my Saturday night Christmas party. A good number of my friends made the bring-and-share event (where we mostly relaxed out on the veranda), but seeing as I often get into trouble for posting pics of friends on my blog, I won’t put any up here.
Christmas celebrations started as usual in my household on Christmas Eve, with my family gathering for gammon and salads. I still maintain that Christmas is losing all its magic in South Africa, but driving to midnight mass with Paul and his mother (Anglican church services are almost identical to Catholic ones) I finally got a glimpse of what I was looking for. Even if you have a more secular approach to Christmas, the holiday should be about coming together to share good company and good food. On the way to church I was pleased to see all the families clustered together in their lounges or in their front yards. You hardly ever see that anymore.
And past events have proved that God prefers that families gather around the time of His son’s birthday instead of going to the beach;)
And, speaking of Christmas, I’m almost forgetting the present loot!
My main gifts were a new gold-and-silver watch, CDs of the Best of Depeche Mode and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Rising, some clothes, a 2007 journal and a poseable artist’s marionette.
My gifts to others, some totally unexpected, seemed to go down well. I still want to get my paws on the Roald Dahl Treasury I bought my mother. Paul seemed to be pleased by his haul – FEAR, the Spaceballs Collector’s Edition DVD and the strategic railway boardgame Ticket To Ride: Marklin Edition.
As for Christmas Day, spending the day on the farm wasn’t too bad – I got a tan – although we maintain that 3 hours of the day on the road still is a royal waste of a special day. Paul and I ate well there and, pacing ourselves, joined my family then in the evening for present opening (quite nice to have later in the day because there’s something to extend the day’s merriments) and another big meal – prawn cocktails, followed by turkey, stuffing and veggies, and then trifle. My mother gave our table a gold look this Christmas.
The evening ended quite quietly, with the sophoric turkey taking effect while we watched House and the Mythbusters Christmas Special.
Other than that, I spent a lot of my week off lying out in the sun getting a tan, reading my first Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, sleeping, floating around in the waves on a surprisingly uncrowded Durban beachfront, watching South Africa vs. India Test Cricket, introducing Mark’s girlfriend to Settlers of Cataan, and swinging my club madly (and twisting my back) at the driving range.
As for New Years, I’m not a big fan of the holiday – the celebrations of the event often seem forced, and I maintain it’s stupid to herald in the year A) making a fool of yourself because you’re pissed out of your mind, B) sleeping off the first year of 2007 with a major hangover, C) getting yourself killed in a drunken driver, or even drowning incident. We visited family and when our back-up plans fell through, watched DVDs while gorging ourselves on KFC. Party animal I am, I just managed to wake myself up for midnight. At least we’d had a Jet Fuel shooter earlier.
Oh, I forgot to mention that a friend gave me the first 11 episodes of Heroes, and considering how the likes of Jeremy at Popped Culture have been raving about the series – a kind of Lost meets X-Men – I’m very excited to sit down and watch it before its prime time debut on South African TV. I’m expecting myself to be hooked, and devastated once I finish my fix and have to wait for the rest of the series.
Fortunately I had finished my Christmas shopping by the 17th December or so, so Paul and I at least didn’t need to brave the malls on the weekend before Christmas other than to pick up some supplies for my Saturday night Christmas party. A good number of my friends made the bring-and-share event (where we mostly relaxed out on the veranda), but seeing as I often get into trouble for posting pics of friends on my blog, I won’t put any up here.
Christmas celebrations started as usual in my household on Christmas Eve, with my family gathering for gammon and salads. I still maintain that Christmas is losing all its magic in South Africa, but driving to midnight mass with Paul and his mother (Anglican church services are almost identical to Catholic ones) I finally got a glimpse of what I was looking for. Even if you have a more secular approach to Christmas, the holiday should be about coming together to share good company and good food. On the way to church I was pleased to see all the families clustered together in their lounges or in their front yards. You hardly ever see that anymore.
And past events have proved that God prefers that families gather around the time of His son’s birthday instead of going to the beach;)
And, speaking of Christmas, I’m almost forgetting the present loot!
My main gifts were a new gold-and-silver watch, CDs of the Best of Depeche Mode and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Rising, some clothes, a 2007 journal and a poseable artist’s marionette.
My gifts to others, some totally unexpected, seemed to go down well. I still want to get my paws on the Roald Dahl Treasury I bought my mother. Paul seemed to be pleased by his haul – FEAR, the Spaceballs Collector’s Edition DVD and the strategic railway boardgame Ticket To Ride: Marklin Edition.
As for Christmas Day, spending the day on the farm wasn’t too bad – I got a tan – although we maintain that 3 hours of the day on the road still is a royal waste of a special day. Paul and I ate well there and, pacing ourselves, joined my family then in the evening for present opening (quite nice to have later in the day because there’s something to extend the day’s merriments) and another big meal – prawn cocktails, followed by turkey, stuffing and veggies, and then trifle. My mother gave our table a gold look this Christmas.
The evening ended quite quietly, with the sophoric turkey taking effect while we watched House and the Mythbusters Christmas Special.
Other than that, I spent a lot of my week off lying out in the sun getting a tan, reading my first Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, sleeping, floating around in the waves on a surprisingly uncrowded Durban beachfront, watching South Africa vs. India Test Cricket, introducing Mark’s girlfriend to Settlers of Cataan, and swinging my club madly (and twisting my back) at the driving range.
As for New Years, I’m not a big fan of the holiday – the celebrations of the event often seem forced, and I maintain it’s stupid to herald in the year A) making a fool of yourself because you’re pissed out of your mind, B) sleeping off the first year of 2007 with a major hangover, C) getting yourself killed in a drunken driver, or even drowning incident. We visited family and when our back-up plans fell through, watched DVDs while gorging ourselves on KFC. Party animal I am, I just managed to wake myself up for midnight. At least we’d had a Jet Fuel shooter earlier.
Oh, I forgot to mention that a friend gave me the first 11 episodes of Heroes, and considering how the likes of Jeremy at Popped Culture have been raving about the series – a kind of Lost meets X-Men – I’m very excited to sit down and watch it before its prime time debut on South African TV. I’m expecting myself to be hooked, and devastated once I finish my fix and have to wait for the rest of the series.
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