A Merry Khotso Christmas - 12/25/12

Christmas morning church service

GABBY - Merry Christmas!  Ben and I woke up and immediately exchanged our meager display of Christmas gifts.  Ben’s present of pajamas was incredible, which I was wearing as we opened gifts.  I gave Ben the present he already knew (voucher for a case of Chicory Stout) and a book, “The Last Rhino”, which was by the same author that wrote a book he had enjoyed in Addo.  After we had finished opening presents, we heard a honking car horn coming from Steve.  Steve, Steve’s mom, Kathy, Ben and I decided to attend an Anglican church service in the morning.  Steve was in quite a state, singing common church hymns in Afrikaans and working his mother up until she scolded him.  He was being so hilarious and put us in a good mood immediately.  Kathy told us that the church service might not be in English because they switch off between Afrikaans, Zulu and English every year.  We pulled up to a quaint, stone, church, which was beautiful and old.  Steve sat us all in the back row because as he said, “this is where the bad kids sit”.  There wasn’t an organ playing, which I missed, but only a piano , which was being played by a younger woman.  The pianist was singing and playing.  She was decent, but I think she thought she was Alicia Keys – a little too poppy for a Christmas morning service.  I was clearly being over-judgey, perhaps there was also a little jealousy mixed in there since if I were home I’d be singing with Amy at our church service.  The service was in English this year, which was nice because we could follow it a bit better.  I really wanted to go to church to sing Christmas carols, but the only one we sang was O Holy Night.  The rest were all contemporary Christian songs that really didn’t do it for me.  We didn’t even sing Silent Night!  After the sermon, we took communion.  Steve informed us that we would be slipping out after communion because you had to go outside of the church after taking communion and reenter from the back.  It was a perfect way to escape without being obvious.  We knelt down, tipped our heads back and were served with…sherry?!?!  I was expecting some red wine, but was greeted by a jolt of sweet sherry instead.  We snuck out and left before the service was done.  I would have stayed, but Steve was set on cutting out early.  We drove back to Khotso, collected Martin from the backpackers and went up to the top house for some mince pies and tea.  I had never heard of a mince pie, but I just assumed it was a meat pie, mince being ground beef.  In actuality, they are small pastries stuffed with a sort of raisin jam.  I ate mine, but Ben wasn’t thrilled with the taste.  We made a game plan for getting Christmas lunch out at a reasonable time.  Ben and I returned to the backpackers to put tablecloths down and spruce the place up a bit.  Steve and his family came down a little later bringing the carved turkey and gammon.  We had a whole spread out for Christmas lunch including Ben’s potato salad, sliced gammon and turkey, baked beans (cold and hot), salad, and bread.  Martin was eating with us as well as a mother and daughter staying in the rondawels.  Looking around it was a very unconventional array of people present at the lunch.  It ended up being festive and friendly.  Kathy even bought crackers for everyone to open, which got the place popping!  After lunch, we all retired to our subsequent chambers for a dos, or siesta before rallying again for a Christmas dinner of leftovers.  Ben and I watched a movie and relaxed a bit together, which was nice.  Around 4:00 Ben broke out the brandy and Cokes!  We played some cards together getting silly and giggly.  

Steve's mom - too cute!

A little later we headed up to the top house for dinner and continued Christmas drinking.  After some time of drinking wine and conversing, Martin broke out a bottle of tequila.  We drank and enjoyed the leftovers from Christmas lunch.  We were engaging in lively conversation until Kathy asked Ben and me why we weren’t home for Christmas.  I told her that it would be amazing if I could just teleport back to Barto, PA for the day.  Martin busted into the conversation trying to tell me that this is exactly where I wanted to be on Christmas.  He said that later on I would grow to love experiencing new places and that today was just another day.  I argued with him and told him that I wouldn’t ever grow out of wanting to be with my family on Christmas or any day for that matter.  The conversation bounced back and forth like this for a couple minutes making everyone else a little uncomfortable and me more and more heated.  I didn’t want to back down, so I said a parting comment and walked out of the room.  I needed a minute to calm down, in which time I proceeded to break down.  I was proud that I was able to compose myself in a timely manner and head back to the table.  Ben could tell that I had been upset and gave me a knowing/loving look before helping to defer the conversation in a different direction.  How bout’ them Eagles?  After that whole pointless conversation I just wanted to head back to the backpackers so that I could talk to my family on the phone.  Steve let us make a phone call to each of our parents, which we were both incredibly grateful for.  It felt so good for both of us to hear the voices of family on Christmas.  Of course, I cried to my parents and Ame and told them about Martin and his ignorance.  Ben told me that he felt that Martin was trying to justify why he was away from home and essentially alone on Christmas.  I tend to agree with him and tried not to let it ruin the whole day.  After we had important and loving conversations with both sets of families we decided to call it a night.  Martin busted into the backpackers, loud and drunkenly babbling about something.  He ended up smoking a cigarette on a bench outside and puking up his impressive amount of tequila.  Gross.  I must say, I was super happy that this day had passed, not something I thought I would ever say about Christmas.  I learned two valuable things today:  1. I don’t ever want to be away from home for the holidays again and  2.  I will never grow out of my family.