Final Posting of 2008- honest!

Okay, I know I said that my previous posting would be the last for 2008 but I thought it would be nice to make one final posting.

I’m writing this on December 22nd, but, oddly enough, am looking back on a lovely Christmas Day. I’ve already explained the reasons for this change of date but I have to say it went pretty well. Having spent pretty much all of their lives as expatriate kids, the boys have accepted a degree of flexibility when it comes to Christmas. I look back on lots of very happy childhood Christmases and they all followed a fairly similar pattern. They all were spent at home with family and friends; home was somewhere very wintry in the UK- either in the Midlands with Mum, Dad and Phil or spent visiting Grandparents. In any case, the whole atmosphere of Christmas which is indelibly etched in my memory is one of a dark wintry day with nobody outside- the reason being that literally everyone was inside doing more or less the same thing. The ritual of Christmas was fairly fixed anyway but the pattern was reinforced by the fact that everyone else was doing the same.

One thing we’ve had to accept living first in Egypt and second in Tanzania is that these patterns are different. This can be tough for many people. We have a friend who has felt terribly homesick (if you’re not homesick at this time of year when will you be?) She has really missed the traditional Western Christmas- turkey, Christmas trees and the suchlike, living in a culture where trees and decorations are minimal, carols are in Swahili and have little to do with King Wenceslas or Three Kings from the Orient and Christmas dinner is more likely to feature goat meat and rice than turkey and cranberry sauce.

Soma wearing her Christmas pressie- the latest fashion item in Tanzania; a Barack Obama kanga

Being a family, we don’t seem to feel quite so homesick. However, I do sometimes get a slight pang and a desire for slightly colder climes! The first Christmas we spent abroad was Christmas 2005 in Cairo. That time we had some of Soma’s relatives visiting us so Christmas Day was more or less its usual exciting self. We started off awoken by three small boys and a little baby (Rohan was only five months old at the time) and spent the morning opening presents and munching on (incredibly expensive) imported Quality Street. We had Christmas lunch as usual- turkey with all the trimmings. However, in true Cairo style the whole thing was ordered from the Marriott Hotel and was delivered right in time for lunch!!

The oddness of Christmas only really struck home when we got round to the post Christmas lunch venture outside. In the UK we’d do this fairly often- a trip to Cannock Chase or just a walk around the block; anything to burn off the calories really. In Cairo, we decided to take a felucca trip- a quick hour of boating on the Nile and watching the world go by. As we stepped outside two things struck me (obvious in retrospect but seemed to hit home on a more visceral level). Firstly, it was not a dark, cold Christmas Day but was a hot, sunny afternoon with only a couple of wispy clouds in an otherwise blue sky. The second and more profound thing was that this was just another normal day in Cairo- everyone was just going on with their business with us creating this Christmassy bubble in our house. This seems pretty obvious- how many non Muslims outside of the Arab World would take much notice of Eid for example? Not surprisingly, a 95% Muslim society paid scant attention to Christmas Day. In fact, even the 4% Copts were oblivious to the festival, as their Christmas would come much later, on the 7th of January. The sheer normality of outside life made perfect logical sense but jarred nonetheless.

Last Christmas took us by surprise a bit. We’d only arrived in Tanzania at the start of November so were still battling with getting a house, getting kids into school, starting work, making friends etc. Because Tanzania is not really a commercialised society, we didn’t have the usual warnings (Slade blasting away in the shops from October onwards for example) that you get in Britain. We did manage an enjoyable morning of opening presents and had a lovely traditional lunch at the George and Dragon. Still, coming out of the Christmas bubble and driving back along a hot dusty African road for a late afternoon swim also brought a bit of perspective to things!

Rohan working through a box of Quality Street- little so and so nicked all the hard centres!

This Christmas, we’ve taken things a step further. Because we’ll be in India we decided to celebrate Christmas early- 20th December to be precise. I have to say we had a lovely day. We started off being awoken at first light by Kieran who came in to announce that he’d found his stocking and had opened his presents. He’d been hoping for a knight’s costume but only found a small water pistol and some books in his stocking. He thought that those were the sum total of his presents. Rather than having a tantrum like many boys his age he announced very sportingly that his presents “weren’t exactly what I’d hoped for but the water pistol is very nice”. We took the little chap and his brother downstairs where they found the rest of their presents, including a very convincing knight’s costume!

I spent the morning making Christmas lunch- traditional in all respects except for the meat being chicken rather than turkey. This was nothing to do with expat life- turkey here is apparently great- and more to do with the rather small stomachs of two of our family members. Rohan did put the lie to this assumption however by demolishing more chicken than all of us put together! We spent the afternoon with our neighbour Dirk and his two boys, Jessie and Joshua before heading off to the High Commissioner’s Residence for carols in the evening. Sitting in the front room with his family and numerous other guests felt very seasonal- even Kieran had a go at singing although Rohan fell fast asleep from the first song!

Carol Singing at the High Commissioner's Residence

Since we left England in early 2005, we’ve spent every intervening Christmas abroad. 2005 was spent with Devika, Stephane and their boys in a Cairo largely oblivious to the occasion. 2006 found us in Switzerland for our only white Christmas so far, though the warm winter meant that the “snow” was mostly artificial. 2007 came just after we’d arrived in Tanzania and was spent largely in the swimming pool and the 2008 Christmas was also celebrated under the hot African sun but on the wrong date!

Sir Kieran in his newly acquired knights costume (along with his noble page Rohan)

With the possible exception of 2006, none of these could be considered to be close to the traditional Christmases of my childhood. However, we’ve honestly enjoyed every single one. I guess that, as with all expats, we’ve had to take a slightly looser view of what Christmas should be. However, we’ve tried our hardest to ensure the important stuff remains. No matter where we are, we spend the day together as a family. We make an effort to decorate the house and put up a tree. The boys get their stockings and we all open our presents together. The Cairo Christmas being the honourable exception to the rule, I generally have my traditional stress-fest and put together a lunch which everyone claims to enjoy (although Soma has to try hard to disguise her true feelings about my bread sauce)! Most importantly, we have a real sense of occasion. We start to look forward to Christmas from 1st December, when (home-made) advent calendars appear, dodgy Christmas songs get played and we just get very excited about it all. In doing this, I like to think we’ve managed to make sure that no matter where we may be, the most important parts of Christmas remain with us. I truly hope that when the boys grow up, they will look back on their Christmases as happily as I do mine.

We’re looking back on Christmas now in fact but from us to everyone still looking forward to the big day, a very Merry Christmas from the four of us.