Summer Christmas

Perhaps the Northern climes, Decembers cold with snow

show lesser conflict in their celebrations

but in our nations, our Southerbrations

(how’s that for a portmanteau!)

are odd,

 

with songs not so apropos

to the, well, you know…

 

the general theme

of sweating on the beaches

that, while sing-song jingling,

post-church caroling,

we’re

sand-castling, skin ting-tingling –

beneath kite-strings and a glaring, singly-ringed sun.

With song-streams of Lapland winter wonderlands,

we’ve

sand in our mandibles,

and a grand blue watergleam offland

which washes waves which wet the strand and

tumble the black, white and red festive resters under.

 

Yet all the while,

we are dashing through the snow,

deep and crisp and even over scorching pan-hot sand and

it feels like snow & bells and sun & sand

lose their ampersands. Yet we withstand

and still sing, because – you must understand, that –

stripping, baking, fire-skipping to the freezing surf,

amphibians in the crashing cool,

singing fa-la-la-la-la and riding waves, ah! This

is how we do it.

 

What holly or ivy have we?

Yet jolly and merry, we join the triumph of

steamed-up windows with hot roast potatoes and chestnuts by the fire,

while we peck at charcuterie, and chill the juice as best we can.

There is no comfort in our yule logs:

just a second front of burning,

which wins the brave braaimaster the frostiest drink.

 

Our drooping heat-wave plastic trees

like dusty flapping ostrich wings,

hang heavy, like a brandy pud,

though here the thing to do is put

the Klippies in the coke instead.

We jostle our posse across the hot plateau;

no cosy hygge in the Kruger, we’ve more kudu

and beers than reindeer in this hemisphere.

 

Our holiday is sincerely weird.