Christmas in summer

It's noticing the sweaty discomfort of Father Christmas in his woolly suit suffering through the humidity, the fake snow spray-painted on windows and the foreign irrelevance of sleighs and reindeer and holly, that makes me think just how Christmas in South Africa is a season of contradictions and incongruity. The holiday doesn't seem to fit right, like some hand-me-down item of clothing. The cracks show easily: in the heat that makes all the cosy Christmas cheer a bit unpleasant to carry out in real life, in the pictures of snowmen hastily coloured-in before children have another splash in the pool, in the wild greenness of a Durban summer paling the evergreen of the Christmas tree.

But I also kind of love that no one cares about the details, that the incongruity doesn't matter. I love the enthusiasm in a Hindu colleague's talk about how she is so excited to celebrate Christmas with her new little son. I love the chaos and colour and contradiction of hybrid-Christmas narratives springing up around me. The point being that it doesn't have to make sense.

While I did spend most of my formative years enjoying a cold Christmas, where the hot food and candles and Glühwein and Christmas decor made sense, I've come to love what a subtropical holiday season feels like too, but it's largely underrepresented in all things Christmas. So in the interests of celebrating the holiday season in a local way, here's my list of things I like about this time of year:

• heat-soaked, lazy days after a busy year of work

• the merciful whir of air-conditioners

• the chaotic green everywhere and the carpet of Frangiapani blossoms on the patio

• mangoes and paw-paws and litchis 

• outside dinners when the day starts to cool down slightly

• the feel of cold water on hot skin

• being barefoot 

• the clink of ice-cubes in white wine shared with friends

• having an excuse to bake something delicious despite the heat and having a cold shower afterwards

• (literally) cool desserts 

• cutting off a bunch of bananas from my little cluster of banana trees in the garden

• the ingenuity of beaded wire Christmas decorations made by industrious street vendors

• finding local substitutes for ridiculously priced nuts and berries

• and like everywhere: time with my people ☺

Words

Sometimes words leave you. They disappear somewhere and remain obstinately out of reach. I've been feeling a bit like that recently. Sitting there, self-consciously, waiting for them to come home. Maybe it's the effects of a busy and well-worn year coming to an end. It's difficult to not feel completely depleted. 

At least I've been doing a lot of reading, absorbing a whole range of words, enjoying the pleasure of them and appreciating the effects of unusual arrangements. I found this list of strange and beautiful words (some English, some borrowed) via Buzzfeed . These are some of my favourites!