Where is your favourite place on earth?

I’m still agonising over mine because there are so many to choose from, and so many memories...

Let me explain why I’m asking. The other day I read about a project in Bali where the residents of a small town are making braided cord bracelets with a ‘tag’ carved from the horns of water buffalo. (There was no cruelty involved, they assured me on the website; there is an abundance of water buffalo and when they die, their horns are used for something with lasting value.)

The tag is engraved with the GPS co-ordinates of the buyer’s choice. It works like this: you go online and enter an address or location somewhere around the world, then your computer spits out the co-ordinates. Voila: the place you love most is on your wrist, a reminder of a destination you want to remember forever.

With Christmas around the corner, many of us will be taking to the road, heading to our favourite destinations – whether it be a cottage by the sea or, if you’ve managed to save enough, a distant land.

Maybe you’re staying at home. Who knows, maybe your house is someone else’s favourite destination and they’re coming to you: children from abroad, a partner who has to work far away, a mother or father battling the frailties of old age.

I remember such a holiday all too well. I was living in PE in an awful flat with cockroaches ready to cart off the dustbin in the dead of night. I was new to town; still embroiled in an argument with the landlord of my sea-facing rental about who should pay for the pest control.

My parents were coming to visit for Christmas. I’d warned them that there’d be no cooking in my flat because of the cockroaches. I’d been fighting a losing battle: no rubbish in the bin; plugs in the bath and basin drainage holes; any food that came into the flat put straight into the fridge as it was the only safe place.

If it was a normal Pretorius seaside holiday, the fridge would have been packed to capacity by Christmas Eve, the table set in the dining room, the gifts hidden away (the latter not because our family confuses Christmas gifts with Easter eggs but because for years now, come October, my mom calmly declares: “Remember, we’re not buying each other Christmas gifts, okay?”. But we all know full well that there will be something small on the 25th that she had unsuccessfully tried to hide away from us as a ‘surprise’.)

On Christmas morning that year in the Friendly City, we started the day off with coffee and a sandwich. At midday, I lit the fire in my tiny courtyard – chops and wors, braaibroodjies, a green salad.

My dad, not one to indulge a sweet tooth, took a short nap while I drove my mom to McDonald’s – ice cream in plastic tubs for dessert. We devoured it just like that in the car at the beach.

It was one of my best Christmases ever. And if I had to make a braided bracelet, the co-ordinates of that cockroach-infested hovel would be displayed on my wrist forever. Not because of the locality, but because of the memory, forever sweet, of that wonderful day. It’s a pity my dad didn’t join us for ice cream. He fell ill shortly after...

Wherever you find yourself this Christmas, whatever you eat, may it be a joyful occasion. And worth remembering – whether it’s because you are in the loveliest place on earth, or because you have amazing company. The co-ordinates of your life’s path having brought you to precisely where you need to be.