Christmas in July

the Christmas baobab tree in Mandela Square

The real Christmas season in South Africa is typically pretty warm hot and there is little evidence of the traditional Christmas trappings we are familiar with in the United States and Europe. The climate and vegetation do not encourage pine and spruce Christmas trees, roasted meats and root vegetables, savory pies and stuffing. Nor do you need velvet and fur and warm woolen mittens. Most South Africans take off for the beach resorts I am told and will braai on Christmas Day. We have not made our Christmas plans yet but I am pretty sure there will be a beach involved as land-locked as we've been this summer winter!

Christmas at my sister's ski house in Breckenridge

When I was house-hunting last December after Vince moved here, I had a glimpse of what Christmas is like in South Africa. It was not "just like the ones I used to know" as Irving Berlin would say. I was even hard-pressed to find a Nativity crèche to bring back to NJ to add to my crèche collection for our last Christmas in the US. I did eventually find a beautiful ebony one at the African Craft Market hidden between the shields and masks but I was lucky to find the only one.

our big tree in NJ with wooden shoes from Holland

Besides celebrating Christmas in the United States in the cold and festive climates of NY and NJ where we lived, Colorado where my sister lives, Virginia and Washington, DC where my parents lived, Vermont where we still have a ski condo and Maine where Vince's sister lives, we also spent a few Christmases in Florida when my family lived there in the 70's. The experience left me wanting ... wanting snow, real pine and spruce trees that smell so good and hold their needles for more than a day, ice skating out of doors, hot chocolate and marshmallows in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace. I remember our first Christmas in Florida lying on the sand in my bikini in Palm Beach thinking "this is just not right!"

some smokers on the shelves and ...

Even when we traveled outside the country at Christmas, it was almost exclusively to the cold climates of Europe to sample the seasonal festivities in Italy and Greece, Scandinavia, Holland, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and especially the French and German traditions in France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

... a collection of nutcrackers from Germany

Our holidays at home in NJ became an amalgamation of all these cultures and traditions along with the familiar American ones we grew up with.

dining table set with Spode for an Advent Sunday dinner

We prepared an Italian Feast of Seven Fishes at our beach house on Christmas Eve, ate a German-inspired crown roast of pork dinner on Christmas Day at home and finished the season with a Russian Feast on the Epiphany. Our Christmas Day appetizers usually included delicacies brought back from our travels that year especially for the occasion. Irish smoked salmon or Danish herring or Russian caviar or French foie gras. And we served them all in the dining room on the Christmas tree Spode china we purchased in England and in our kitchen on the red and white alpine Christmas china we brought home from the French Alps. We drank our wine and egg nog from Bohemian crystal wine and punch glasses and our mulled wassail from the dozens of gluhwein mugs we collected as souvenirs from the European Advent markets.

St.Lucia wooden doll with her candle crown

We set out our Dutch wooden shoes under our main Christmas tree for Sinterklaas to fill on St. Nicholas Day on December 6. On December 13, we lit candles on the crown of the wooden St. Lucia doll we brought back as a souvenir from a St. Lucia celebration in Sweden. We put out Advent calendars, nutcrackers and smokers from the many German Advent Markets we visited and we went to see the snowflakes dance in a Russian classic, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.

We lined Mexican luminaries around our house and along our pathways on Christmas Eve like they do in Colorado and we put candles and wreathes in our windows as the English do. And we celebrated the Christmas season until the Twelfth Night on the Feast of the Epiphany as do the British, Russians, Greeks, Spanish and Italians.

dog sleds and voyageurs?

I of course had my international crèche collection on display throughout the Christmas season. Most of them were not purchased exclusively at Christmas time. But each crèche's unique construction materials, costumes on the Holy Family and even the animals represented in the background reminded me of Christmas in the country of its origin no matter what time of year we had visited. For instance I am pretty sure there were no sled dogs at the first Nativity as the Québécois voyageur crèche would lead you to believe!

Since South Africa is so diverse with a large number of its citizens of Dutch, English, German and French backgrounds, I am clearly not the only one who equates Christmas with these traditions. We are in the middle of "winter" and while it is not snowy and white, it is at least chilly and not sweltering. You even have to wear a coat sometimes.

caroling at the African Craft market

So I am seeing  a large number of advertisements on and receiving invitations to "Christmas in July" celebrations at country clubs, restaurants, spas, hotels, casinos and even Blaauwklippen Vineyards. From craft and farmers markets too.

Gluhwein and Hot Chocolate at the Neighbourgoods Market!

Fourways Market

The entire town of Parkhurst hosts a Christmas in July celebration downtown with holiday decorations, mulled wine, street food and entertainment. You can even "get your Christmas on" while on safari. The Karula Lodge near Kruger will provide traditional Christmas dinner in July and August for guests after a day viewing leopards and rhinos!



But still no Nutcracker. The St. Petersburg Ballet is performing in Joburg this month but they are dancing Swan Lake. The resident South African Mzansi Ballet will dance The Nutcracker. In December. For Christmas. Like God intended and baby Jesus would want.