The festive season is almost over, but I, for one, am not quite ready to let it go.

I love this time of year – the slow mornings, long beach days, midday naps and far too much good food (January diet here I come!).

This holiday, we spent some time in the Berg with my parents over New Year’s, so we missed all the fuss over fireworks and the taps running dry. But we had nature’s fireworks instead, with the most dramatic thunderstorms almost every day. I love the contrasts in the mountains, it can be pouring with rain one minute and the sun shining the next, the mountain splendour even more breath-taking after a quick wash.

My parents have a lovely cottage with the most enviable view, but the one thing it lacks is access to a swimming pool. And boy, does it get hot! The surrounding hotels are usually packed over the season and don’t welcome day visitors. So what to do? Get in the river, of course.

It was on one of those glorious mornings – with our two boys and their two friends splashing happily in the river, playing with mud and making up games – that it occurred to me just how lucky we were not to have a pool. Because if we did, we likely would never have discovered this happy river with its shady banks. We would have stayed in the sterile chlorine pool, much like every pool you’ve ever encountered – and missed out.

It’s a subtle shift in mindset to reframe a situation. “Poor us, we don’t have a pool!” changes to the realisation that real living often happens outside your comfort zone. Sure, the river is a little closer to the main road than I would like, but hey, we wave to the taxis and bakkies trundling past, knowing the occupants are looking out enviously, wishing they could join us.

Even being able to afford a holiday is a luxury we don’t take for granted. It’s one of the biggest parenting challenges: helping children who have never experienced real struggle to understand how privileged they are. Your dad moaning at you to “eat your food because there are starving children out there” doesn’t make sense to a child who has never had to miss a meal.

In one of my efforts to combat this privileged mindset I took the kids Christmas shopping at the Ballito Dog Box and Kloof SPCA, which has a much larger second-hand store. We had much fun finding treasures at a fraction of what they would have cost new.

My least favourite holiday tradition is the mandatory sick week. Blah. Yuk. Boo. You can avoid the nasties all year long, but come December, there’s nowhere left to hide. My head has been pounding for the last three days and I wish I could crawl into bed, hide under the covers and binge-watch a new series.

But no – that luxury belongs to the time period commonly referred to as B.C. (Before Children). Toddlers do not entertain themselves, at least not without major consequences (usually involving a permanent marker or the toilet-papering of your lounge).

Luckily, I am not as ill as my husband, who has a very severe case of man flu. It’s a good thing women can’t get man flu – entire civilisations have crumbled for less. (To be fair, he has been very stoic and an easy patient).

So if you see me at the beach with my three wildlings, a box of tissues and a stash of strong painkillers to ward off the pounding, just give me a wide berth – and hopefully, you’ll be spared this particularly vile viral strain.

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