Christmas 2012

In our usual Christmas tradition, we opened presents on Christmas Eve, following a quiet family BBQ with the four of us.  This year we bought the boys a virtually unlimited supply of books by way of a Kindle each - books are considerably cheaper and instantly available.  They are delighted, being avid readers!

Nick preached the Christmas Day message, and there was a good time of fellowship and chatting after the service.  We had Andreas, Danielle, Betta, Chrissy and Jeremiah around for lunch, and with many contributions from all parties we had ourselves a feast.  Cold chicken, ham, salads, BBQ'd beef (our bad, it was as tough as leather), and trifle and pavlova for dessert...what a spread!  The weather was gorgeous and one could almost have gone for a swim at the bay, had we not had packing to do in the afternoon. 

In the late afternoon (technically evening, being 7 pm, but the sun was still HIGH in the sky) we called in at the de Beers for a cup of tea, along with the Bothas and Pienaars, and Adele's family.  It was entirely (not intentionally, just coincidentally) a South African crowd that gathered, and as such, Afrikaans was almost entirely spoken.  It was lovely to hear - I realized that I have never in my life been in such exclusively Afrikaans company - we came to New Zealand for a truly SA experience :)  Somehow the men and women were entirely segregated; at one point I went indoors to sit next to Nick but soon got bored with the male conversation of hunting and shooting and calibers and steadying the rifle on your shoulder and how light a crossbow trigger is.  Funny things, men!