Wednesday 6 January 2010

Zimbabwean Christmas

In the end, there were no giraffes, but there was turkey and mince pies and Christmas cake and carols and Santa Claus.

On Christmas Eve, we went to a nativity play at the local Catholic Church. Excellent nativity play – though was slightly incongruous that Baby Jesus was played by blond, pink-fleshed doll easily half the size of child playing Mary.

Christmas morning went to church, opened presents by the tree (thank you to the lovely people who sent presents via Robbie!) and ate Toni’s divine (that’s the South African influence on me – but it was divine) Christmas cake.

(Robbie's impossibly glamorous grandmother, Ethelwyn, and his niece, Jessica.)

(Robbie + cake)

In the afternoon, we went to Robbie’s Uncle Rick’s farm – where there are giraffes, honest, but they just didn’t feel like coming out. All was not lost, however, because a much rarer example of wildlife was spotted coming across the dam:

It was a lovely day and I was beautifully looked after by the whole family but I have to be honest: it didn’t really feel like Christmas. 29 Christmases in the Northern Hemisphere have conditioned me to associate Christmas with early darkness, frosty mornings, woolly jumpers … the kind of weather where candles and roast dinners and fur trimmed clothing (poor Santa) make sense.

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