Carnivores

Have successfully managed, for the second year in a row, to spend the “holiday season” outside of North America and find this ducking the holidays thing to be habit-forming. Thinking about Christmas back home largely makes me itchy, mostly because Canada is so dry and overheated in December that I’m invariably suffering from dry skin and static-y hair.

Last year on Christmas, my family moved en masse to a time share in a touristy village in Portugal where the television sucked, there was an insufficient number of beds and my mom snapped at me about having too much luggage, which I took to be a richly ironic comment considering the source and stayed surly for hours afterward.

But we were treated to a holiday spread by a friend of my parents who were holidaying in the same village. We swapped driving horror stories, complained about the quality of the television, marveled at the stupidly cheap price of booze, compared a few of our favourite souvenir purchases and swapped ideas for filling the rest of our holiday days. It was, in the end, a restful and somewhat rosy way to spend the day.

The holidays at home are rarely so peaceful. By the time the 25th has arrived, I’ve usually behaved in astonishing Bridget Jones fashion, sluttishly accepting every Christmas party invite that comes my way and eating and drinking and making merry as though the start of January signaled a coming drought. Getting home is usually a hassle; there’s too many people all suffering from dry skin and static cling crowded into too small a space in weather that’s not really befitting Christmas. (In our neck the woods, there’s slush on Xmas day far more often than snow.)

Once I get home, it is rarely serene and relaxing. It’s never enough time to relax properly or catch up properly or sleep properly. It’s usually a mash of running from one place to another: getting last minute supplies, eating in drafty basements, ferrying olive trays to one house or the other, putting up decorations, staying out of the way, fighting over what television shows to watch, fighting in general. On the day of, I’m usually hot and tired and itchy, dressed in too hot a sweater and too tight pants and generally feeling out of sorts that everyone around me seems comfortable and well put together, while I’m dandruffy and big bottomed.

This year, we woke late, five floors of hotels separating me and my parents and 5,000 miles and eight hours separating me from my siblings. Although I’m about to turn 30, “Santa” came with batteries and chocolates and a new, stain-free T-shirt. We watched the Muppet take on the Christmas Story, then my parents made out for a walk (they made it as far as the pool, since the security guard refused to let them roam alone in all their Muzungu glory on a day without police) and we gathered later around the pool.

In the late afternoon, we called home to talk to my sister and brother and my Dad chattered away in a manner I’ve rarely seen before – either he really missed home or really wanted to talk about his African adventures – and then we headed off to Carnivore, to sample some of the very animals we’d paid good money to spot on safari.

I spoiled the Christmas spirit by pulling a Mary Kate in the bathroom almost immediately after wolfing down ham, turkey, spareribs, lamb, beef, chicken wings, camel, ostrich meatballs, a potato, crocodile and some sweet potato soup.

Merry Christmas!