Apart from the lack of snow, our family Christmases when I was young followed a reasonably typical British model, even though my forebears had lived in South Africa for a couple of generations. (I think all of my grandparents were born in South Africa but all of my great-grandparents emigrated from the British Isles.)
Christmas was usually spent at home in Port Elizabeth, though some years we went to my maternal grandmother in Knysna a coastal resort about 160 miles to the west. In either case, we always had a real Christmas tree, with strings of lights, ornaments, tinsel. and a star at the top.
Many kids in the area had their photographs taken with "Father Christmas" at the local O.K. Bazaars (a chain of department stores) and received a gift box containing a bunch of cheap trinkets. Because my brother Mick is still a baby, the photo must have been taken in 1957, when I was 3. That's not a very Ho! Ho! Ho! kind of look that Santa is giving! Our other brother, Ian, is 7 years younger than me so by the time he was old enough to be in such a photo I was no longer interested.
When we were young (or even not so young) our parents bought all the gifts, including the ones we had to give each other. On Christmas Eve one parent would take us aside to wrap gifts and write cards for the other parent and then the other parents would do likewise. Sometimes in the days before Christmas when our parents were out of the house we would snoop around trying to find what they were going to give us. One year we found a table-top soccer game. But on Christmas morning that didn't show up among the gifts that we unwrapped. We didn't say anything. It turned out that our parents had forgotten about it. They came across it a couple of days later and gave it to us as a belated present.
Several weeks before Christmas my mother always mailed out many Christmas cards, to relatives and friends both near and far. We received many in return. Those living nearby who my parents say frequently tended to write just our names and their names on the card. Those living further afield usually added at least a few sentences of news. The cards we received were pinned to string strung around our living room.
My parents had a couple of LPs with Christmassy music - maybe one with carols and another with Christmas songs. At least one of the two was a recording of a choir from a European country where English was a foreign language and their pronunciation of English words a little strange. For instance, it sounded like they were signing about "San Douglas" coming to town.
When I was in high school I "sang" in the choir at our church (St. Hugh's Anglican church). My "singing" career is a story for another day. The only relevant part is that the choir sang at midnight mass on Christmas Eve and again at the 9 AM service on Christmas morning. I had to be at both services, usually riding my bicycle the mile or so each way. My father had been raised as a Presbyterian and when we were very young we went to the Christmas morning service at a Presbyterian church, long before I started going to the Anglican church. For many years Christmas was the only time my parents went to church, though they started becoming more religious at about the time I was becoming less so. My father later claimed that it was because of me that he started going to church more frequently. I don't know why I got the blame - I did not try to persuade him to go.
For us Christmas was mostly about gifts and eating. Much eating. Heavy Christmas (fruit) cake with thick white icing for morning and afternoon tea. The main Christmas meal was in the middle of the day, often with neighbors or other friends invited. There were always paper crowns that we had to wear at the table and Christmas crackers to pull (see photo). Christmas crackers The main dishes were roast turkey and glazed ham. (There is no Thanksgiving in South Africa, but those of British descent typically had turkey at Christmas.) From a quite young age even the kids had wine with Christmas dinner. Dessert was Christmas pudding with brandy butter sauce. Low denomination coins were traditionally stuck in the pudding. I liked to help my mother make the brandy butter sauce, mostly so as to do taste testing. Much testing was needed.
Although our mother did some of the baking, such as making Christmas cakes, much of the credit for the main meal was due to our live-in housemaid, Edith Hempe. She worked for my parents for more than 25 years and even moved with them when they relocated from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria. The photo shows Edith holding Steven in my parents' backyard in Pretoria.
My kids never had a chance to experience our traditional Christmas. My mother passed away shortly before Steven was born. Lisa was born in Seattle and was less than two years old at the time of the only Christmas she had in South Africa.
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