two and two makes five: A Very Southern Christmas

I'm used to celebrating warm Christmases. After all, for 29 consecutive years, I spent Christmas day in the American South - specifically in Florida, Georgia, or (I think maybe once or twice) in South Carolina. It was possible for Christmas to be cold in Georgia, but not that cold, and in Florida, a cold Christmas was rare at best. I never dreamt of a white Christmas, I never heard sleigh bells in the snow, I never roasted chestnuts on an open fire, and I certainly never understood why any old man would wear such a thick fur-lined velvet suit in a Florida mall. I remember that it dipped below freezing one year on Christmas and we ran the garden hose over the deck the night before to make icicles. That happened once. I remember several years when the neighborhood kids quit playing outside with our new toys because it was too hot and went swimming instead. I suppose that to some that wouldn't seem like Christmas, but it does to me - that was Christmas in the South.

But this will be our third "Very Southern Christmas." You Yanks just had the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year and the beginning of winter. The sun sets well past 8PM here now and it's time to hit the beach. Our roads are packed with the upcountry hordes swarming to the ocean for summer holidays. All my sweaters are packed away and I've only been wearing shorts and sandals for a while now. My Christmas dinner will be spent with friends outside around a braai - the South African grill/cookout. It's summer and it's Christmas.

Even though I've had many more hot Christmases than cold, a summer Christmas is altogether different. Even in Florida, summer and winter have a different rhythm. And there was at least the potential of a cold snap around Christmas. Evergreen trees and warm drinks and crackling fires and songs of snow weren't entirely out of place - we knew they made sense somewhere nearby, somewhere familiar, at that moment.

The "colonial" Christmas, if I can call it that, is out of rhythm, out of place, out of tune, and is making me feel out of sorts. Our Very Southern Christmas is imported from Somewhere North and still involves men in furry suits and scenes of snow and warm drinks and fat Christmas hams. It doesn't feel right.

So this Christmas, I've decided to embrace summer. I won't sing of decking any halls with holly, won't drink any warm drinks, won't wear an atrocious sweater with snowflakes on it, won't decorate an inside tree when the garden outside is full of flowers, and I won't sip eggnog and sing carols around a fire. And I won't be a Scrooge either - I'll just be enjoying my summer, and the kind of Christmas that is called for in the summer. Maybe I'll learn to surf.

Have a very Merry Christmas, whether warm or cold, whether Northern or Southern Hemisphere, regardless of your customs or traditions. I'm starting to get the hang of this new Very Southern Christmas...