Tina: <file_photo>
Tina: Dear Ella and Jamie, we wish you a wonderful Christmas - wherever you are going to celebrate it!
Ella: <file_photo>
Ella: Thank you my dear! From our Havana abode we are wishing you a lovely time with your family at Christmas!
Ella: Have you got some Xmas tree? Here in Cuba nobody celebrates Christmas, it seems. But a holiday flat opposite ours has some sort of Xmas decoration.
Ella: <file_photo>
Tina: <file_photo>
Tina: My little Christmas tree, bought on the side of the road, made by Africans.
Ella: I think I like this tree very much!
Tina: :)) Bill is rather skeptical and says that its only good feature is that it will shed no needles. Will you be celebrating?
Ella: Not really. In fact we never do, apart from a few jokes about a Xmas dinner. In a country like this it is easy to forget it is Christmastide. We really don't care. I would still do something at home but don't bother while travelling. And you?
Tina: My daughter Laura and her hubby are coming down from Jo'burg, so I guess we'll have a grand Christmas meal. Bill loves preparing all these English things and Laura is quite mad about them too. I'll bake a proper south African sugarcane cake.
Ella: Never tried this one!
Tina: It's really a joke, more of a traditional name than anything. And too sweet to be enjoyed. Just a Xmas treat. Did you have traditional dishes in Poland, the ones your mother used to prepare for Christmas?
Ella: Oh yes, plenty! But I liked only few of them. I wish I could taste them again though. :( weep,weep..
Tina: Good old days of childhood... When I think about Howick in the days of my childhood and how it has changed for worse, it makes me cringe. Good that my mother didn't live long enough to experience all this deterioration. No good thoughts for Xmas.
Ella: But good to remember our loved ones!
Tina: Right you are. Then once more: Happy Christmas to you both!
Ella: And a happy Christmas to you, dear Tina and Bill! With kind regards to your family!
Tina: Thank you dear.
Tina and Ella wish each other a happy Christmas. Ella and Jamie are spending Christmas in their Havana abode and they do not plan to celebrate. Tina bought a Christmas tree. Tina's daughter Laura and her husband are coming from Johannesburg. Tina and Bill will prepare a grand Christmas meal.