Photos from the holidays

Here are some pictures of my holiday


The beautiful water falls.


The Christmas Tree with the presents.



The insect are HUGE and the bites are terrible!


Chris and I making the best of the situation!

Christmas

I do not get emotional about family and christmas and all the crap. ...or at least i didn't used to.

For reason i am still trying to figure out, i agreed to spend Christmas in one of the hottest places on earth (just slightly south of the Equator). While the views are amazing, the animals are awe inspiring, the heat is DEFINATELY intense!

There is something about this heat that causes me to remember back to my mother's Christmas traditions. She always liked to have a christmas tree up. THe house was fabulously decorated and christmas presents were wrapped perfectly every time. We would gather in the living room to mock her as she sang christmas tunes slightly out of time to her cds. This year i intensely miss that.

There is no snow on the ground and none is threatening to fall. There is a palm tree in place of a pine tree and the christmas paper is been placed over gifts that have already been given to me...its all a formality. This works here. I just feel homesick for a northern hemisphere christmas.

merry christmas, may you be utterly depressed

I have always looked forward to attending the christmas service of my local church. They bring in special music items and the children are always dressed in their christmas best. This year was no exception. I was amazed by the chior and the many different styles of music that was being presented. i enjoyed it greatly!

That is, until the minister felt the need to speak. As soon as he reached the podium he was talking about how terrible the shape of the world is. He spoke about SIN! and how acceptable sin was becoming in our society. How it was encouraged that if we were going to go out and sin, we should do so safely! (our row said amen, but i think the rest of the church found it inappropriate) He warned us that as we went into the world to be careful of things things that looked safe but would lead us away from God.

At the end of the service, he admonished us to give generously to his buy-a-new-video-camera-for-the-church fund.

another christmas

Last night we celebrated Christmas. I know, its not the right day. I could get into a theological and historical debate over the validity of celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December, but i won't. Lets just say that the family has a very open view on when Christmas gets celebrated.

This year, do to the fact my sister in-law is leaving to go to america for christmas, we decided to open presents early. We had christmas dinner (i cooked my mother's famous special k loaf). Christmas dinner involved cooking all afternoon. Salad, mashed potatos, brocolii and carrots were all prepared well in advance. Whenever we weren't preparing, we were setting the table to look stunning. While we prepared mum (in-law) and i would chat. At first it was light stuff, but soon turned into family issues. There is something sinister about having to cook christmas dinner while discussing family issues. The bright side of that is that i know understand that side of the family SO much better.

By 6 everyone had arrived and we started the meal. After some discussion about the ligimatcy of reciepes that came from America, the food was finally eaten. (apparently the loaf wasn't cooked quite right, but no one died so i don't know what the complaintes were for)

And then part that is always the most exciting, we went outside to open gifts under the christmas tree (which happened to be the tiny mandarine tree out back). I played 'santa' and handed out the gifts. and just like that it was over. christmas was cleaned up and they were gone by the stroke of 8:15.

Now that it is all over, i feel justified in getting terribly sick.