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BEHO BEHO BUSHMAIL

CHRISTMAS 2011

And finally...the end of the year is here and how fast it arrives. It feels like it was just yesterday when we welcomed new faces into the Beho Beho team with the start of the season in May. December is a month often characterised by never-ending Christmas parties, last minute gift buying and then finally the jubilant time with family and close friends as everyone gets into the mood of the silly season. It is Christmas - a time of eating and drinking too much and giving gifts and thanks to those who colour your life in some special way. The New Year follows immediately after, a time to let go of any lingering upsets or grudges and welcome the new year with hopes of a year filled with love, friendship, prosperity, health and happiness. The month of December is a month of joyful fun as well as soulful reflection.

Christmas in the bush is always a truly remarkable occasion. Sipping mulled wine or toasting with champagne whilst watching a hippo or elephant at the watering hole - it can't get better than that! And even though we don't have crisp cold snowflakes and a warm hearty fire that one would correlate to thoughts of Christmas - we are lucky to have the wide blue sky above us encouraging some ice cold beers or chilled wine, a barbeque feast and perhaps a dip in the swimming pool. December finds itself at the start of the rainy season, so the weather can be dramatic - and many past Christmas days have seen thunderous storms and blasting wind whisking cutlery and plates off the table. This year though - we were lucky to have a clear blue sky and a glorious sun that shone all day long.

A week before Christmas the Beho Beho staff went through their annual transformation - from camp employees to industrious Christmas elves. Baking and decorating cookies, cutting out and making Christmas cards, erecting the thorny whistling acacia Christmas tree, hanging ball-ball's and making the star to go on top. It was a busy time as we prepped and carefully thought out what to create using best what we had around us and all the time focussing on getting that special magical Christmas spirit. Karin and Kimberley agreed that since it was going to be the green season and with such beautiful new green grasses, sprigs and shrubs around - that the colour scheme for Christmas would be lime green, turquoise blue and silver. Red was banned from the tree (much to the upset of others... ) and kept only to a minimum. A stylish and refreshing take on the normal dark green and red Christmas that most people are accustomed to. Why else would one go away somewhere wild and exotic for Christmas - to get away from the intoxicating mass consumer sale of red and green and nasty Christmas carols played on repeat in every store that is often a city Christmas! So we chose to do something a bit different and make it an extra-special and unique Christmas spent in an extra-special and unique place!

Eventually we were ready to receive our eleven wonderful guests who too like us had magical thoughts of Christmas a little different this year. Everything kicked off on Christmas Eve when Karin and the kitchen had cooked up a fearsome feast of delicious Christmas cuisine. Before dinner as we enjoyed a glass of mulled wine - Walter showed and explained the multitude of stars in the southern hemisphere to guests on the parade ground. Dinner was set in the Eagles nest and the table was decorated in black and gold with Christmas crackers, golden leaf candle wreaths and a big side table filled with golden painted seed pods and snail shells and a pile of glittering golden-wrapped Christmas Gifts. The traditional turkey with chestnut stuffing and gammon was served buffet style with rice, potatoes, pumpkin fritters, veggies and cranberry and bread sauce. For pudding Christmas cake drowning in Brandy custard sauce and with beautiful marzipan holly leaves on top. We decided to ditch the hot and fuzzy Santa's hats for everyone and instead each place setting gave either a King's crown or Princess Tiara. We all toasted, drank and ate with our majestic looking Gold crowns like true royalty! Next was gift-opening - and each person present received a lovely gift - for the girls a Zanzibar scarf and for the boys some locally made bottle openers.

Everyone awoke on Christmas day and ventured out on some merry game drives and some did a walk. Whilst everyone was out Kimberley hung secret stockings left by guests and set-up for Christmas day lunch. Karin and the cooks started early with their culinary preparations. It was decided that Christmas day lunch would be enjoyed in the Lookout Banda and luckily the weather was glorious making it the perfect setting. Tables were set with silver and green beaded charger plates, green leaf wreaths with lime green, blue and silver decorations. Specially made woven baobabs with green and blue material wrapped around the bark and small glass beads adorned the centre of the table. Lunch was a feast of meats - duck, glazed ham, calamari and garlic prawns with potato and a variety of green salads. Dessert was a decadent chocolate cupcake layered with brandy butter and sugar cream icing in our traditional colours of bright blue and green!

Next came the exciting part of the day - more gift finding and opening. Blue and green locally made stockings hung from a rope in the lookout banda - each adorned with someone specials name. After lunch everyone went to find their gifts and snipped them free from the rope. Girls were treated to a lovely African print vanity bag that contained a lovely set of locally made bone napkin rings. The boys were delighted to receive real wooden Maasai fighting sticks (Hopefully not to be used during Christmas!) The stockings were of course filled with quality streets and toffees - otherwise they wouldn't have been proper stockings at all really! We all meandered up the hill after lunch - as full as an African tick - and everyone retired to their rooms for a well-deserved afternoon nap or swim in the pool.

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As Christmas was over and it started to dwindle in our minds - we looked forward to New Years Eve and yet another fun party celebration. We said sad goodbyes to our Christmas guests but welcomed new and fabulous faces to celebrate the close of 2011 with. New Years Eve was celebrated in style and with such a variety of nationalities (Italians, Germans, British and South Africans) - we had a few surprises from around the globe. It all started with dinner on the parade ground where we enjoyed a feast with a starter of duck wontons in sweet soya sauce and pomegranate rubies followed by a main of roast gammon, roast potatoes, rice, vegetables and an apple and gravy sauce. Dessert was something special - and following on from a Mexican New Years Eve tradition, one gold coin was hidden in one of the chocolate mousses which it is believed would bring the receiver a year filled with luck and wealth! After dinner we returned to the main area and Kimberley discussed some interesting New Years Eve traditions celebrated all over the world. Did you know that in Spain at the countdown one should stuff a grape into your mouth at every chime of the countdown from 12 leaving you with a very well-stuffed mouth of grapes as the clock strikes 12. In Italy - wearing red panties on New Years Eve brings good luck for the year to come, in the USA the dropping of the ball in Times Square is a big highlight - dropping something of worth is thought to bring luck and wealth. In Germany, lead is melted in a spoon and poured into cold water and the shapes read your future for the next year as well as finishing off the evening by eating a marzipan pig for good fortune. 2012 is also taking us into the year of the dragon according to Chinese Astrology - a fiery sign that promises to provide us with a year of unsurpassed enthusiasm and passion!

A chest of fancy dress masks and items had been set-up in the main area and before we knew it - everyone had a silly mask especially the two youngsters celebrating the eve with us. There was also a table filed with fun sparklers and party poppers. Next up, the Masai who work for us at Beho Beho offered to sing and dance to welcome the New Year. This was performed on the parade ground and provided our guests with an amusing show of some local singing and sky-high jumping by the magical Masai. Next up a small fire was created down on the parade ground and guests were encouraged to follow on after a Southern American tradition - of writing down any negative experiences of the past year and throwing them into the fire - destroying them or allowing them to be let go. Thereafter, a wish, hope, promise or dream for the coming year is written down and again cast into the fire to make it come true of course! Before we knew it - it was almost time for the countdown and in typical British tradition Auld Lang Syne was set-up to play and with poppers in hand we counted down....ten...nine...eight...seven...six....five...four...three...two...one....Happy New Year!

Party Poppers cracked and confetti filled the air. Hugs and kisses and well wishes were passed to everyone and we popped open bottles of fizzing champagne and toasted and enjoyed the moment welcoming the new year of 2012. We hope your Christmas and New Years Eve celebrations were both as joyful and jubilant as ours at Beho Beho were. We wish you and your families a prosperous and happy new year. May all your dreams and wishes come true and bring health, love, laughter and happiness to you. And now a quote for the start of the new year goes as follows...

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

To read more about the Christmas Culinary Treats and see Karins Fantastic Christmas Cake check out the
Christmas Foodie Blog