I thought I should get in a December post before the New Year, which is about 12 hours from now. Summer is very nice here, but unfortunately our pool does not have a heater and only seems to get up to 76F during the day. Miranda was the only brave one to get in. But luckily everyone in our neighborhood has a pool in their garden so it is easy to find someone with a heater.
Miranda has been off of school since December 5th and will go back for the new year starting January 9th. It is weird seeing Christmas decorations and back-to-school supplies in the store at the same time. She's been enjoying her time off and will be in a new class when they resume. Jackson is getting more and more teeth and is now up to 10 with 2 more getting ready to pop through. I'm almost 100% positive he's slightly allergic to peanut butter, and after scratching his legs raw, we found a laundry detergent he's not allergic to.
We now have a Comedy Central channel, but all it shows are old sitcoms like "3rd Rock From the Sun", "My Wife and Kids", "8 Simple Rules", and "Northern Exposure". It's very disappointing. You can catch a South Park episode once in awhile, but I think SA's interpretation of comedy is a little different than ours.
Since we did not do Christmas gifts for family back home this year, we adopted our gardener, maid, and her family. We filled a backpack with goodies and toiletries for our gardener as well as purchasing a new pair of sneakers. Since he speaks very limited English, it was hard to tell if he liked it or not. For our maid, we filled 2 pink backpacks with dolls, coloring books, and candy for her 2 granddaughters, a Cars themed one for her son, and duffel bags with spa-like goodies for her and her daughter along with a set of dishes. She went home for 3 weeks as do most of the helpers in the neighborhood. Apparently our neighbors have been gone as well and they left their dogs in the backyard. One of them sleeps all day and barks all night. After 2 weeks of non-stop barking we finally got security to come and tell the maid to put the dogs in the house. I can't believe how inconsiderate and negligent some people in this world can be.
Miranda and Jackson sat on Santa's lap at the Sandton City mall and you could buy a 5x7 picture for $4. There were no tears and the photo turned out great! We then went to the Smurf village and watched a live show. There were some tears when Gargamel was on stage. Lunch was spectacular since the food court had a Schlotzsky's and Cinnabon.
Christmas was very nice here with our South African family. We spent the eve at church with about 5 other families and then headed over to another's house for cookie decorating and sparklers. We were able to Skype with both sets of grandparents Christmas morning as it was 7am here and 11pm there. Miranda has been enjoying playing with all her new Squinkies, Jackson's giant ball pit, and my new iPad2. We had dinner that evening with more friends and excellent food. We never did get that Christmas 'feeling' this year since we've never spent it in such a warm environment. But we put up a tree and other festive decorations, watched Christmas movies, and listened to holiday music. Have you ever noticed that most of the songs sing about it being cold and snowy? Kind of weird hearing that over the speaker at World of Golf while you're practicing your swings.
Shopping the day after Christmas was a very pleasant event. They do not have any special sales so the stores were not crowded. A lot of businesses close down from Christmas until after New Years here because most people go on vacation. It makes it hard to run errands or find a restaurant to go to on your anniversary. But we found a nice Italian place and were able to get great service since we were two of only about 10 people in the whole restaurant.
Our landlords called to wish us "happy holidays" while they were on their way to their beach house just south of Durban. How many houses do these people have? They spend weekends at their Kudu game ranch a few hours from here. But they won the award for 'nicest landlords ever' when they said "you can use our cabin on the beach whenever you want." Say what?
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