My grandparents came to Zambia every year at Christmastime. I was electric with anticipation: making countdown calendars, filling welcome baskets, and repurposing toilet paper tubes as confetti dispensers. One year, I turned my craft room into a museum. The BFF Gift Store was always stocked with friendship-bracelet-bookmarks and papier-maché desk organizers. (Grandma and Grandpa’s purchases there funded most of my store- or market-bought gifts.) 

The rains came, the backyard mangos ripened, school ticked down to the holidays—and finally, Airport Day! I bounced outside arrivals, waiting for Grandpa to push the luggage trolley through so I could give them python hugs and shout and see if Grandma had American candy in her very large purse.  They had to be exhausted—there’s no route between the States and Zambia that takes less than 24 hours—but that first day was magic, and I wanted them to see everything. 

The other days were magic too, except for the day of reckoning when Grandma cleaned the craft room, or the afternoon she secluded herself to wrap presents. She brought wrapping paper from the States, but they had to leave things unwrapped in case airport security wanted to search the bags. (Security always wanted to search. I caused Grandpa consternation one year by requesting an infrared pen and a periscope labeled “Spy Gear.”)

Traveling days could be a trial too, when we rattled over six hours of potholes to Livingstone or fishtailed through kilometers of mud to the Lower Zambezi. But then we’d arrive to zebra grazing the hotel lawns and the prospect of an (illegal) hike across the top of Vic Falls, or the chance to wrestle muscular, sharp-toothed tigerfish into a boat on the Zambezi. The fish fought back like angry bricks. Grandma surprised us all by hauling in the biggest one. Then she nearly got eaten by a hippo in Botswana, but Dad snatched her boat chair back from its yellow-tusked maw. I made up songs as the sun melted into the river at night. In Grandma and Grandpa’s rondavel, we played Boggle and Yahtzee past bedtime. 

Back in Lusaka, Christmas commanded all our attention. One year, Grandma and Grandpa and I baked about 600 butter cookies, so every kid at church could have one. (Cookie dough was one of the very few things Grandpa was willing or able to eat in Zambia. He and I both ate our way to the far end of regret that night.) 

I remember Grandma and Mom labouring to re-create American recipes: pulsing pork in the blender for ham loaf and trying to whip scant cream with a whining mixer, the countertop transformer radiating heat as it stepped down 220 voltage for wimpy American appliances. We pretended it wasn’t the tropical rainy season while we sipped white hot chocolate with maple extract. Grandma slipped Reese’s Christmas trees from the freezer when she came to tuck me in. 

Christmas Eve had its traditions—dinner by voluntary candlelight (back before loadshedding), Dad reading from Luke, everyone opening one present apiece. But Christmas morning was the real pinnacle of the year. Even the pets got presents: treats for our rabbit Dust Bunny and collie Cassie, and American collars for our three generations of snake-hunting cats. These unfortunately came with a safety mechanism that allowed release when the collar snagged on anything. They vanished in half a day. 

Grandma and Grandpa faithfully replenished my stock of American candy, books, and craft supplies. (They brought new clothes, too, though I chiefly remember flinging these like confetti in celebration of the more exciting things.) I got to give out the gift-hoard I’d been stockpiling since August or October. Pictures, crafts, art I’d bargained for at the markets—I was giddy as I handed out packages. 

There was an odyssey behind the wild joy of that morning. Months of missing my grandparents, of Sunday night conversations where I hugged the phone receiver till it creaked and Grandpa spluttered and gasped like I really was squeezing him. Weeks of preparation on their side, of shopping and antimalarial medication that never would defend them from Zambian stomach bugs. Long days of flights, layovers, delays. 

I’m grateful for every year they made the trek to Zambia. Every good Christmas since then borrows some of its magic from those Lusaka days.