A midsummer's Christmas

For Christmas Eve, Goblin, mom and I went out to Claudia’s place. Her caregiver cooked a roast chicken, mom made a gammon and I made chocolate pots de crème. We opened up presents to each other and Goblin loved the Christmas crackers. Everyone wore their paper party hats without complaint although Goblin’s hat was a little too generously sized, but a quick application of some sticky tape and we all had crowns that fitted. We stayed out quite late and it was 9pm before we arrived home with a very sleepy Goblin.

I quite expected him to be up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning but he surprised me and didn’t wake up until 7:30am. And even then it took some encouragement to get him downstairs to the presents set out beneath the tree. Mom and I had stayed up late the night before and hurriedly wrapped everything. It’s a good thing a three year old has no real discrimination about perfection (or the extreme lack of) in wrapping because much of the wrapping paper was hanging on by a wing and a prayer and some very slapdashedly applied tape.

I broke one of Goblin’s presents as I was putting it under the tree. I’d bought him a tiny green mug (green is his avowed favourite colour) and dropped it. Ceramic mug + ceramic tiles = that ghastly tinkly crash sound that means someone better get a broom and a dustpan chop-chop. Fortunately Goblin didn’t know the difference and he loved the gifts he did get.

For lunch we were lucky enough to be invited to Johannesburg Country Club with my aunt, uncle and niece. The club has a gorgeous (and apparently relatively new) pavilion next to the pool and tennis courts. And above the pavilion is the volleyball court. A volleyball court that apparently doesn’t drain well when it’s received days on end of rain. After lunch, Goblin went exploring and it didn’t take him long to discover the rain-filled volleyball court. Rain and mud-filled. Delicious fun for any three year old little boy. (Actually, if I’d had a change of clothing, I admit, it’d probably have been fun for this mommy too.)

After he’d gotten thoroughly wet and muddy, I retrieved Goblin. Time for a change into something dry. My brave and wonderful aunt Denise took Goblin off so I could have a lovely post-lunch cup of tea. (I could wax lyrical for multiple blog postings about how nice it is to order tea and have a good cup [pot] of tea delivered to me in South African restaurants.)

Aunt Denise got Goblin stripped down to nothing, reached for his clean dry clothes and then grabbed for the empty space where Goblin had been just a few moments before. Standing a few feet away, eyes a-twinkling, bouncing with nekkid joy was Goblin: “You can catch me now,” he announced and took off.

So there we were, at a la-di-dah country club with the Christmas lunch streaker dashing across the lawn towards the tennis courts. Alas, everyone was laughing too hard to actually pick up a camera and take a photo, although we have some before shots that should be good for the 21st birthday embarrassment special.

All in all a wonderful day!