Yesterday we hosted the family for our traditional Christmas breakfast:
…but that was yesterday.
Today is Boxing Day, which for our family is as important as Thanksgiving.
Oh yes… ’tis the time that famille du Toit has its Christmas Day dinner (a day late but certainly not a dollar short): roast beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, this year all ably prepared by Daughter and hosted by the Son&Heir at his place.
See y’all tomorrow.
…from Santa’s favorite elf:
We have a guest in our house: New Wife’s brother will be staying with us for a week or so, having managed the 330-hour flight from Johannesburg to DFW (some exaggeration, perhaps).
Anyway, he is a man of gargantuan tastes (despite being slender in frame), so yesterday consisted of picking him up from the airport, feeding him breakfast at our place followed by an evening which consisted of beer, wine and BBQ. Also much laughter and good times (see title).
Today promises more of the same — and we haven’t even reached the Christmas weekend yet.
Oy.
And he brought with him from Seffrica all sorts of delicacies e.g. biltong, Richelieu brandy and various Christmas comestibles, so the effects of his visit will be felt long hence.
Next week will be spent pretty much at the range, as he attempts to deplete my ammo stock as much as he’s started to attack my booze cupboard. Little does he know…
What fun. What glorious, glorious fun.
My head hurts.
In an age when marriage is ignored in favor of “hook-ups”, “partnerships” and “friends-with-benefits”, it’s heartening to see how one couple, at least, started young and over fifty years later, are still making it work:
Devoted couple Harry and Sandra Redknapp admit they love each no less than they did after exchanging vows more than half-a-century ago.
Redknapp was a promising young footballer with West Ham United when he met apprentice hairdresser Sandra Young on a rowdy dancefloor above Stratford’s legendary Two Puddings pub in 1968.
Months later they were married, with Sandra supporting her husband as he finished his football career with defunct north American club Seattle Sounders before establishing himself as a much-loved coach and manager.
My Murkin Readers will probably be going “Harry who?” but the fact of the matter is that Harry is as famous Over There as Bill Parcells, Phil Jackson or Tom Landry ever were Over Here.
I know that to people of his generation, such loyalty, devotion and fidelity might seem nothing special, but here’s the difference: his and Sandra’s marriage has been a celebrity one, subject to all the scrutiny and limelight that only the awful British press can bring.
Stories of his devotion to Sandra are legion (some of which are contained in the above article), but it should be known that Harry would have been a juicy target for all the fame groupies (step forward, Ulrika Jonsson) for whom his notch on their much-chiseled bedposts would have been a noteworthy one.
But he never strayed, and as he’s got older, that loyalty has made Harry Redknapp all the more beloved to the people of Britain since his retirement from football management.
Well played, mate.
Dec 7, a date which will forever live in infamy:
However, for me it’s not quite that bad, in that it’s also my dear friend Trevor’s birthday:
…as well as that of my New Daughter-In-Law Kerryn:
Happy Birthday to both of you, and never mind the sound of exploding battleships in the background.
(I should point out that Trevor lives in Hawaii — but nowhere near Pearl Harbor, and Kerryn in Johannesburg, also nowhere near Pearl Harbor…)
Outside the United States, Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday, nor even a thing — their loss — so I’m sometimes asked to explain the whole concept to foreigners. Here’s the story I tell to do so.
Tom worked in the office next door to mine, back at the Great Big Research Company in Chicago. He had moved down from Minneapolis to take the job, bringing his wife and kids with him. Under the term “Straight White Corporate Guy” in the dictionary, you’d find his picture: always immaculately dressed in suit and tie with polished Johnston & Murphy wingtips, glasses with thick lenses, hair cut short but not too short, a workaholic — you get the picture.
He also had a dark and impish sense of humor, completely out of character but made all the more enjoyable because it completely destroyed the stereotype. (At the staff cafeteria lunch table one day, we were discussing what we’d do if we won the lottery. Tom: “Porn movies.” “Make them or perform in them, Tom?” “Both.”)
It came about that on one Thanksgiving, instead of taking the family back to Minneapolis for the extended family reunion, Tom had to stay because of work pressure; He couldn’t leave on the Monday, as he usually did, so this year his wife and daughter went up early, while he stayed behind with his son, intending to drive up on the Wednesday evening.
Well, that never happened because on the day before Thanksgiving, the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area was hit by a truly gargantuan snowstorm which was too much even for Minnesoduh to handle, which meant that Tom and his teenage son were stranded in Chicago until the day after Thanksgiving, at which point the roads would be clear enough for him to get there. But as for Thanksgiving Day itself? Just him and his boy.
Needless to say, there was no Thanksgiving meal, but Tom decided to make the most of it anyway, so he and his son went off to the nearby Jewel supermarket to get a substitute. Tom, of course, did not know how to cook, so they got two frozen turkey dinners and went off to the checkout.
The cashier was a lady in about her fifties, and when she saw the two lonely TV dinners on the belt, she looked at Tom incredulously and said: “Is this your Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Yes,” Tom said (and here’s where that sense of humor came in), “This year, it’s just the two of us.”
“What about your wife?”
“She’s not with us.” (said with just a touch of melancholy)
“Oh no,” said the cashier, distraught. Without a moment’s pause she said, “Would you and your son like to join my family for dinner later today?”
And this, my friends, is the meaning of Thanksgiving. This lady was prepared to open up her home and table to two total strangers, just so that they would have a family to share Thanksgiving with.
To his great credit, Tom was mortified, and with considerable embarrassment managed to extricate himself and his son from the predicament. But he never forgot the episode. Nor have I and, I hope, nor will you.
Despite everything, we Americans still have a lot to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
