Christmas preparations at the Equator

Written on Tuesday 23 December, 2008

It feels rather odd preparing for Christmas when the weather is, for the most part, like a hot summer day.

Nevertheless, we’ve been doing ‘Christmas’ things for the last few days. Kate had the foresight to insist that we bought some fairy lights when we were in Kampala a few weeks ago, and has been making little stars out of surplus material and pillow stuffing. They’re chubby and pleasing to squeeze.

The tree itself appeared in our house 2 days ago, courtesy of John the gardener. The ‘trees’ are really the un-pruned tops of hedges, which are left to grow for exactly this purpose.

On the Christmas food front, Kate made a Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago, which we’ll be icing soon; along with a Christmas pudding which we steamed for 3 hours (2 hours to go, we reckon) on the asigiri, the charcoal burner. Last weekend, we (well, mostly Kate) made mince pies. After 40, we’ve still got mincemeat (another excellent buy in Kampala) left over so I’m wondering whether she’ll make more…

It is strange having preparing for Christmas here, but rather nice that we can keep the same traditions as we do at home, albeit with short sleeves and outside eating…