En Passant: Jimmy’s letter to ol’ Santa

Santa Claus,

PO Box 1,

North Pole,

Up There At The Top.

My dear ol’ Santa Claus,

Verily, tempus fugit, as they say in the classics. Once again I can hardly believe that the whole of another year has passed since I last wrote to you. They say that as you get older time seems to pass by even quicker, and it’s true. The days, weeks, and months fly past like a succession of startled hadedas. Like galloping aardvarks. And I hear more and more younger people also saying, “My, how time flies!” so it seems that the whole world is hurtling towards… what? I dunno.

I presume it’s much the same for you, that you’d no sooner got back from your 2013 world tour, un-harnessed the reindeer, given them a good rub-down and an extra bucket of festive moss, kicked off your boots and tucked into a couple of Mrs Claus’s freshly-baked mince pies, than there was a knock on the door and the postman was standing there with the first batch of this year’s “Dear Santa” letters. I bet you were tempted to tell him to push off.

Actually, it’s never occurred to me, but I suppose it’s possible that you and Mrs Claus have relatives, and you might have got back to the North Pole to find your mother-in-law and family had paid you a surprise Christmas visit. That’s all you need, hey?

I know one year my boet from Bronkhorstspruit paid us a surprise visit, rocked up just before midnight on the 24th, hooting at the gate like a mal ding, waking the whole damned neighbourhood and yelling, “Surprise, surprise!” Doris was not amused, let me tell you.

My boet had pulled a caravan all the way from Bronkhorstspruit (said it was to save us the trouble of making beds etc), and by the time he’d parked it in the back yard (in the process breaking branches on Doris’s prize magnolia, and demolishing the washing line) and we’d rigged up an electric lead from the kitchen window, by that time it was already early Christmas morning and we woke up a couple of hours later nackered. Doris was in the sort of mood that you’d imagine she was suffering from mad cow disease.

Anyway, in my boet’s defence, he came prepared, I’ll say that for him, so prepared that I doubt there was anything left in the shops and bottle stores back in Bronkhorstspruit. So in the end it actually worked out OK, except for his eldest daughter, Sharon, who hogged the bathroom for at least an hour every morning. What do teenage daughters do in there for so long? And what do they use all those metres of toilet paper for?

My sister-in-law and Doris get along fine, she bowing to Doris’s superiority in matters culinary (which helps, trust me), and between the two of them they put together a really nice traditional Christmas dinner including a huge turkey imported from Bronkhorstspruit. Doris and I were just going to have an chicken, so we chucked that on the braai on Boxing Day, or the Day of Goodwill as they call it now.

Ja, so anyway, we’re not expecting anyone this year, and Doris and I are not going visiting relatives either. Call me a boring old fart if you will, Santa, but there are so many nutters on the road that I avoid travelling over the festive season if I can, and in this case I can. Then, before you can spit and say “sawdust” it will be New Year and 20-bleeding-15.

This year, 2014, was a funny old year. Let’s see: there was the ebola breakout in West Africa, the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil, the Commonwealth Games in Scotland, Chad le Clos, the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared, and the Oscar Pistorius trial. And World Peace is as far away as it ever was, possibly even further away.

In South Africa it seems that the news was dominated by the whole saga around our President, Jacob Zuma’s, “security upgrades” to his homestead at Nkandla, a total farce since it’s subsequently been reported that the first line of defence, the security fence, has fallen down and nobody seems to give a toss. I mean, if the goats can wander in and out, what’s to stop an assassin let alone an ordinary common or garden thief?

In fact, Nkandla has so monopolised the news that now, at the end of the year, we might even change the words to the Christmas carol “Away in a Manger”.

“Away in Nkandla

“In a vast double bed

“Our king-pin ol’ Jacob

“Lay down his shaved head.

“The stars in the bright sky

“Looked down where he lay

“And wondered just like us

“If he ever would pay.”

I dunno, the world is a crazy place and getting crazier, in my view. But no doubt we’ll survive, stumbling along from crisis to crisis, and before you can spit and say “Nkandla” it will be 2016.

I do wish you a very happy Christmas, ol’ Santa, you and the missus. Pasop on Christmas Eve if you have to use the roads. There are, as I’ve said, some real nutters out there, many of them behind the wheel.

With best wishes,

Your old pal,

Jimmy Smith.