Carol’s Column

Hooray, it's happy holidays again

GENGHIS Khan swept down like a warthog on the anthill and knocked the opposition flat. Clever man.

An authoritarian despot, he always managed to get his own way. What he said went.

It's not like that in the Lazar household. Here, what everyone says, goes. In different directions. It's called democracy.

Everyone has a different opinion, which makes meaningful decision-making almost impossible. And PW Botha thinks he's got problems. He should move in here for a week and he'd go away thinking that running South Africa was kinderspeletjies in comparison.

The bosom, and the spleen and kidneys of this family, are a hotbed of dissent. No matter what the topic, someone always disagrees.

And right now the topic under discussion is the coming Christmas holidays.

"Okay," said my husband, "where shall we go in December?"

Bearing in mind that this is the middle of November and everything is booked solid, you might think this is a rhetorical question. Not a bit of it.

"The Transkei," said Barry.

"France," said Ralph.

"Plet," said Jamie.

"Cape Town," said Nicky.

"Israel," said my husband.

"The Comoros," I said.

You can see how united as a family we are.

Ralph, my second oldest unmarried son, sold his sailboard, his law professor, car engine and guitar, and immediately booked a student ticket to France in order that he might suffer the experience of camembert, red wine and long-legged Parisienne wenches.

Which left five dissidents.

"Let's draw lots," said Jamie, the pragmatic member of the family. So we did, Plet won and Jamie was ecstatic.

"We'll go over my dead body," I announced, "there's no way I'm going to Plettenberg Bay over Christmas."

"Fine," said my husband, "let's look for a little cottage at Plet."

I think he's trying to tell me something.

Everything in Plettenberg Bay was booked solid. Which left cancellations.

And then I struck gold. "Mrs Lazar, I have just the thing for you," said a charming Mrs Wade. "It's right on Lookout Beach, next to the carpark. If it's noisy you can always sit inside the house. It's got a jacuzzi in the garden, lots of beds and it's an ideal family holiday house."

"We'll take it," I said.

"Good heavens, are we buying the house?" said my spouse when he heard what it would cost. That was the week after the stock exchange crashed.

"Let's make a plan," I said, so we sold our house in Johannesburg in order to pay for our cottage at Plet. At the end of this month we move to the fourth tree on the left at Zoo Lake.

Meanwhile the homefront has become a battleground for what and who will be going to Plet. At the last count we were taking one microwave oven, one yacht, one inflatable dinghy and outboard motor, 23 fishing rods, seven wetsuits, seven sailboards, two paddle skis, one designer caftan for drinkies, one pregnant hound, five Lazars and Lisa, Tracy, Graham, Cindy and nine of Barry's student friends who will just be popping in for three weeks or so.

"Don't worry, Ma, they'll sleep on the floor, it'll be great."

That's the trouble with a self-recruiting oligarchy, it makes all the rules.

Actually, I can't wait to escape to Plet to have a quiet seaside holiday with the 73 089 "Hello, howzit, Doll?" visitors from Johannesburg's kugel kingdom, the 932 boardsailers who'll be there for the wave-jumping championships, the 23 042 boerewors-braaing boers from the platteland and the 17 001 Bryanston hot-potato crowd.

It will be such fun.

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