Festive Season Open House @ Valley Lodge

The holiday season in South Africa is absolutely nothing like the ones I used to know in the USA. First off, it is summer. It is hot. Jack Frost isn't nipping at my nose. So it doesn't feel like Christmas.

I used to complain about the "commercialization of Christmas" that begins around Halloween and turbo-charges into hyper space once Santa closes the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in Herald Square.

Here, there are "Christmas trees" in the malls - and by that I mean tall metal cones with lights and / or garland - and the springboks are illuminated, not the reindeer. And nothing like the massive wall-to-wall decorations that fill every shop and storefront window, drape every restaurant, church and office, adorn every public square and neighborhood all across America. In fact, the decorations here are so few and far between that you will literally miss 'em if you blink. The Rainbow Nation's color palate is not reduced to red and green either. Nobody ever complains about the commercialization of Christmas in South Africa. Especially me. It just doesn't look like Christmas in South Africa.

Festive season braai

If you want to hear Christmas music, you'll have to work it by going to a special Christmas concert or Carols by Candlelight celebration. Jose Feliciano's Feliz Navidad does not blast freely from every speaker in every dentist office, shopping center, elevator and airport in the nation. No Santas or Salvation Army soldiers on every corner jingling bells for donations. I haven't seen one choir of angels, heard one hand bell chorus, or had one band of carolers knock on my door. It just doesn't sound like Christmas in South Africa.

No chestnuts roasting on the open fire of a corner street cart. No spicy cinnamon and nutmeg aromas wafting from a gluhwein market stall. No whiffs of pine and spruce as you brush past a Christmas tree vendor on the street. It just doesn't smell like Christmas.



And speaking of gluhwein, it was 33 degrees Celsius for the Festive Season Open House we hosted for our neighbors on Sunday. That is like 92 degrees Fahrenheit. I served the gluhwein on the rocks! No one cooks their Christmas gammon or roast beast inside in the oven. Christmas feasting is essentially a summer barbeque. It certainly doesn't taste like Christmas in South Africa.

So in order to survive the Christmas season, we have adapted. Gone native. Our Christmas tree is a wire baobab decorated with beaded animals instead of Christmas balls. Our floral decorations are proteas and fynbos. Our gingerbread house is a rusk rondavel with shredded wheat thatching. Our luminaria candles sit in Cape wine bottles and not paper bags filled with sand. We do not strew every square inch of the apartment with princess pine and cedar, bay and laurel roping. And the gardenia and jasmine bloom in our garden instead of our conservatory.

Christmas mint, not rosemary

welcome!

Christmas crackers in a wire baobab

Our festive season open house menu was a combination South African braai / American barbeque. Boeries on the braai. S'mores. Our South Africa neighbor got into the spirit. He wore his Colorado cowboy hat and brought star-shaped watermelon to the party!

I introduced our guests to the s'more! I have found Hershey's chocolate bars in Joburg (Thrupps) but the graham crackers and Jet-Puffed marshmallows were imported from the USA.

This is how it's done ...

And we toasted the marshmallows in a potjie!

Too hot for a real fire ...

Here's another difference. They do not say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah", "Happy New Year," "Happy Holidays" or even "Season's Greetings" here. It is the "Festive Season" in South Africa.

We are off to the bush and the beach so have a Happy Festive Season. See you in 2015.