Christmas Cheese

(recent sunset on the hill just outside the flat)

(another recent sunset looking back towards town)

Christmas Eve day commenced with the epic search for a marinated Christmas chicken. Yesterday, we spent five hours searching Windhoek for the bagged poultry seasoned in local marinade, but only found a single sorry looking, warm bird in some weird yellow goo. This morning, at the third grocery store, the butcher wheeled out a dozen of the prize birds, and now we are set for:

Starters
Cheese Plate (Brie (Pronounced “Bree”), Blue, Havarti, Cheddar) with Assorted Crackers.
Pear, Apple, Grapes
Wine

Meal
Grilled Veggies on the Braai (Pronounced “Bry”) (Mushrooms and Mini Squash)
Krysta’s Famous 10-Hour Cornbread
Epic Marinated Chicken Dripping Over Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato, and Corn
Wine

Dessert
Cookies and Cakes
Famous Matt Moulis Hot Cocoa and Peppermint Schnapps
Wine

(the finished product)

We also smuggled in Elf, Christmas Vacation, and It’s a Wonderful Life. We are hoping to find a 24-hour marathon of A Christmas Story. We figure this is an international fixture.

Tomorrow morning, we will be baking Christmas Egg Casserole or classic egg casserole with orange juice. We found an English speaking Lutheran Church and hope to attend a morning service.

Last night, driving home from dinner with a friend, we passed through downtown to an extravagant display of Christmas Lights. Ten foot high angels and snowflakes hanging from the lightpoles, animated windmills of light in the central Zoo Park, Santa Clause, all canopied by the grand African stars, similar to the clarity of northern Wisconsin night sky or western Illinois, only backwards.

Christmas day, at 17:30, we load onto the Intercape Mainliner bus and begin our 20+ hour ride to Victoria Falls on the Zambezi river for a week of hiking, white water rafting, sitting in pools over the precipice of the falls, and safari in Botswana.

For certain, we miss our families and friends over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and long for future Decembers in the snow, but for this year, we will rely on Skype, think of home, and try not to step in the elephant crap.

Happy Holidays!!!!