Boxing Day and a few family members…

The day after Christmas I woke up at 5:30am, so I am guessing my body clock is really screwed up! I decided to be a functional human being and make tea for everyone (by the waking this idea…totally over rated!) Once everyone was up it was announced that Bruce (my uncle), Bridgette (his wife), Damien (my cousin) and Michaela (my cousin) were driving from Kokstad to spend the day with us. Already I feel so lucky as I have managed to squeeze so much family time into my 4 ½ days in the country. We were also joined by Chris and Jaune Heller and their two kids Dylan and Casey. They are close family friends of ours, so it was amazing to see them again after so long.

Jaune and Casey

Being my first “boxing day” I didn’t quite know what to expect, in America our day after Christmas is exactly that… the day after Christmas. That being said I much prefer the South African version. As I am sure you can all tell from my amazing figure I love a good cookout…er… umm… I mean Braai and a beer. I can assure you that if we were lucky enough to have that kind of weather in December we too would be outside cooking out and hanging out with family. Again though, when the weather is consistently well below 0C it is not great weather for a braai (or as we call it a barbeque). Getting the chance to meet the friends and family was a lot of fun, and relaxing. The only place that I have ever felt more at home than when I was in South Africa is when…well… I am at home, so that was a great feeling.

Damien, Tyler and I

The afternoon was spent watching the guys braai, drinking Hunters and playing cricket. Playing cricket is a usual Christmas tradition for our family. Tyler has never partaken in a cricket game (or a warm December for that matter) so this was a new experience for him. It started as a fun game with plenty of volunteer fielders, that was until the ball kept going over the fence and was eventually lost in a maze of bushes so we upgraded to an extra-large tennis ball. Tyler was up to bat and excitedly hit the ball for what would have been a 6…if the bat hadn’t snapped in half. Great start to his cricket career –NOT! After teasing him about breaking the bat, we admitted it was an old bat and was on its way out anyway.

As for the cricket match admittedly I had no idea what I was doing, everyone tried to explain it to me, but I was more focused on not screwing up. Unfortunately I must not have understood as much as I thought as I had to google what a ‘six’ was to determine if my girlfriend was making fun of me or complementing me in her previous post :/ … that being said I felt horribly about breaking the bat, which took away from any good feeling I got from making solid contact with my first cricket swing. Just what a guy needs when trying to fit in with the girlfriend’s family… you can be sure that there was plenty of good natured American jokes tossed in my direction for this ;)

Tyler and the bat