Christmas and New Year's in South Africa

I had a lot of people ask about how my Christmas went this year. It was fun. It really didn’t feel the Christmas holiday I’m used to. I’m visiting home in a couple of months, so it feels about like Christmas hasn’t arrived yet. But I enjoyed spending time with friends here in South Africa during the official holiday time.
South Africans celebrate Christmas in a variety of ways. I had time with two families, both of them had beautiful formal dinners.

First, on Christmas Eve I was with Jose, Glinys, their daughters, and Glynis’ mom.
They had a beautiful table set.I made sweet potato casserole (marshmallows here come in packets of white and pink together….I started to only use white ones, but I threw in the pink ones to add some South African flare to the dish : )















We had Christmas crackers.




















And then watched movies.














On Christmas day I headed to Eagles Rising. Since I had packages to take the staff and a few students staying for Christmas, I had a car trunk full of presents….now that felt like Christmas!





I had a lovely lunch with the ER director and her family. She also had a nice formal table set.




















This is a typical South African Christmas lunch. I took small portions to see how things were first. That meat with creamy sauce on it is ox tongue….never imagined I would eat that! It was okay. Definitely needed the sauce on it!




The desserts were so fancy!



















A lady from Abilene sent presents for all the ER staff. I got to pass them all out. It was so much fun!!






































Later, we went to the beach!

















Then, came New Year’s Eve. I went with friends to a concert at Kirstenbosch Gardens (Cape Town’s botanical gardens). It was so beautiful and a lot of fun.