Men are just Nasty

As you have probably gathered from my previous post, December is not my favourite time of year. Which probably explains the weird and uncharacteristic behavior I am about to describe to you. On the morning of New Year’s Eve I inexplicably find myself in Woolworths at Sandton City with my younger daughter, who is 4. She is riding in the trolley with most of the ingredients for dinner. Most of the ingredients, that is, except the cream. By 9:30am on the 31st December, Woolworths in Sandton City, arguably the biggest Woollies in the country, serving the wealthiest population in Africa, had run out of cream. Of course I complain to the manager.

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Well, I’m glad that’s over.

Well, I’m glad that’s over. The whole Christmas season. I’m siding with the Grinch here on this one. Maybe my heart is two sizes too small, or maybe my wallet is a couple of sizes too tight, or maybe I just don’t have enough leave to spend a precious week of it planning, preparing, shopping and cleaning up after just one lunch party. Christmas lunch is definitely NOT a value for effort meal.  Technically it is not that difficult, just a roast dinner with starters and dessert outsourced to the other guests. I mean how hard can a bird, two veg and a salad be? But even Nigella Lawson, who likes to toss things into the oven while she mixes cocktails in her dressing gown, finds it a BIG THING. It takes DAYS of multiple shopping trips, preparation from the crack of dawn and three days afterwards to restore the house to order. We only had 6 adults (4 of them elderly) and two children to contend with this year, but they trashed the house as if it was a matric dance after party.

I think it is the weight of expectation from our parents that their traditions be passed onto their grandchildren, even though the intervening generation have moved on from turkey and brandy butter. While I quite like turkey, I do find a roast a bit of a trial on a day when the temperature goes beyond 30, especially when followed by that horrid stodge called Christmas Pudding. The fussing over the pudding drives me insane. The heating of it, the sticking coins into it and the lighting it, (even when in the glare of a summer hemisphere afternoon you can’t see the flames). And then there is that disgusting confection called brandy butter. Maybe it makes sense in Scotland, when the additional shot of calories, fat and alcohol is just what is needed to make Christmas lunch last all the way through that last blizzard in February, but in Johannesburg in December it is enough to make your liver rupture. However, my mother in law believes that brandy butter is the holy communion of Christmas dinner, so she was mighty upset when, while our backs were turned for an instant, the dog hoisted itself onto a chair and slurped the lot off the table.

The dog, feeling neglected and left out of the whole Christmas thing, had taken care of it’s own Christmas dinner by eating a dead pigeon off the compost heap. It was not feeling well and spent the day sloping about miserably trying to get us to take it to the vet.  (Yeah right, emergency vet on Christmas Day – I don’t think so Doggy!!!) After it’s brandy butter dessert I think it wanted to die. Although my sympathy for the dog is usually quite low, especially since it is too dim to make the connection between what it eats and how it feels, I felt fairly similar the next day. I claim that I was suffering from exhaustion, but Peter maintains that I am too dim to make the connection between what I eat and how I feel and it was actually a hangover.

So having contrived to be too sick the whole day to clean up, Peter and I (and Alex) are lying in bed on the night of the 26th, listening to a big December thunder storm while flicking TV channels and drinking Citro Soda.  I am groaning softly and Peter is surfing the Internet looking for holiday properties to buy in Cape Town. (While I am sufficiently in touch with my inner Grinch to just admit that I hate hosting Christmas, Peter is still pretending that he needs an investment property far away, when the real reason is that he is actually prepared to spend a couple of million in order to evade Christmas next year.) Suddenly the thunder and lightning occur INSIDE the house. There is a flash as our modem vaporizes and everything goes dark.  I try to comfort screaming children while Peter goes to untrip the electricity. I take it as a sign – a punishment from above for my lack of Christmas spirit and emotional charity towards our families. Peter sees it as a miracle – all our other electronics were spared when the electricity tripped!

After the Christmas trauma, I flatly refuse to do New Year,  so we end up inviting just one other couple round for dinner, with the agreement that we will all be in bed by ten pm and NO FUSS SHALL BE MADE.  Other couple are delighted as they have just had baby number 2 and their need to get out is almost completely balanced by their need to stay in.  ( http://joumaseblerrieblog.blogspot.com) The offer of an early night, any number of beds and sofas for babies and toddlers to crash on and a TV that defaults to the BBC Children’s channel is a New Year Eve’s dream come true for them.  They are not going to care what we cook as long as they don’t have to make it themselves and they will not notice / care / comment on the fact that my 7 year old has moved out of her room and has set up an apartment of her own in the entrance courtyard. So we cook the menu we really wanted to do at Christmas but weren’t allowed to. Starters from Woolworths – I broke a light sweat opening the packaging, prawn pasta and a homemade blueberry and buttermilk ice cream. Convenient, luxurious and seasonal, so much more relevant, regional and Christmassy than a Tudor style feast and the only criticism I received the whole evening was for bothering with make up when the dress code was strictly “Just Rock Up.”

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