Day 161 : A very Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone, I hope Santa has been good to you this year!

Being on the other side of the world at Christmas time feels funny.  They don’t really do it like we do.  If you didn’t know it was ‘the season to be jolly’ it might feel like any other summers day.  All week we’d been trying to make ourselves feel Christmassy; tinsel in the cab, Christmas songs on the radio and even a little Christmas tree from the 2 dollar shop.  Nothing seemed to be doing the trick.  We still missed our family and friends, the cold, crazy Christmas shoppers and even brussel sprouts.

On Christmas day we decided to trade in the traditional turkey and trimmings to do Christmas how the kiwis do it.

We were up and on the beach by 9 to get a water taxi from Kaiteriteri to Abel Tasman National Park.  It seemed everyone else had the same idea, the ferry was busy busy.  We would like to think we brought a little Christmas cheer dressed in red and wearing Christmas hats.  After a couple of hours sailing we arrived at our destination, a secluded beach.  A cheeky snooze on the sofa was replaced by a snooze on the sand.  Instead of charades we played cricket on the beach.  A walk to the local pub was exchanged for a tramp through the forest which hugged the coastline.  It wasn’t such a hard life after all…

Once we were back home in the lovely house James and Cat had kindly lent us the Christmas day jobs were dished out, this is a well oiled expedition after all.  Girls were Directors of Dining whilst Steve, Chris, Jamie and Dan headed up entertainment, meat, BBQing, table setting, refreshments and decoration.  Big gigs.

Just before dinner we had a surprise visit from an FTFE follower, Viv.  She’d heard we were in Abel Tasman and tracked down the fire engine to say Merry Christmas!  Brilliant.

The rest of the day was pretty similar to Christmas back home, eating and being merry, but in the sunshine.  That I could get used to.

Amy

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