I wrote this Christmas letter to my friends and family back home a few days ago, realized it worked as a blog post and wanted to share this very strange and fun holiday with you all:

Dear family, friends, loyal readers and one-time-drop-ins,

Today is Boxing Day in New Zealand – a “holiday” I don’t fully understand, but from what I can gather it’s kind of like Black Friday with the sales (though not as insane and American), and mostly consists of cleaning up, maybe a post-Christmas walk and lots of recovering. In our family it also involved quite a bit of Kahlua (don’t ask).

However, I just got off Skype with my family, where they are mid-Christmas day. My dad was wearing the same sweater he wears each Christmas, the tree was blue-themed this year and I watched my parents and brothers open the presents I left for them. So while the holiday may be over on this side of the date-line, I realize most of you are still in the trenches. So to prolong the day and get my kicks by sharing what Christmas is like Down Under, I put together a little Christmas letter, complete with photos and the weird things people do over here.

The day did not start off with presents, as is custom in most houses, but with a big breakfast and a journey over to Takapuna – a town about 10 minutes away – where we sat on the grass by the beach and watched a “play” put on by a local celebrity (apparently he was on Neighbors). To be honest, I thought it was a little corny and full off physical humor the British are so famous for and I never find funny. [Note: The Kiwis are incredibly similar to the British in terms of customs, holidays, money, traditions and, yes, humor.]

Regardless, it was nicely done and has been going on for 5 years. Afterward, the family (myself and Sam, Sam’s parents, brother, brother’s girlfriend and her parents and sister) went for a walk on the beach, which looks out over Rangitoto, the local volcano. We came across a lot of families picnicking, other folks going on a Christmas walk, and a group of 30-somethings swimming in the icy water while wearing Santa hats.

Afterward, we headed home for…. PRESENTS. Always fun. We started off with everyone ripping open their gifts at once, but my family never did it that way and I find folks don’t appreciate the little things. At home we always opened one present at a time. With six of us, it took hours, but each gift got a little story and you always saw the face of the person opening it. Which is basically the whole point of gift-giving!

After what was probably four hours of present opening we did some bumming around. I played with my new Kindle (thanks to the gloriousness that is Sam) and a GPS system my dad sent over that was programmed with – wait for it – John Cleese’s voice and New Zealand directions. Doesn’t really get any better than that.

It was a surprisingly beautiful day and we sat outside by the pool playing Minute to Win It games, which consisted of placing an Oreo on your forehead and moving it into your mouth with just your facial muscles (none of us succeeded), using a piece of spaghetti to spear six pieces of ziti using only your mouth aannnnddd using a straw and your powers of suction to do weird things to M&Ms [check out the list of games here]. Basically, there was lots of ridiculous facial expressions and plenty of snorting, rolling on the ground laughing and sheer exhaustion. I’ll do everyone a favor by not posting photos…

Dinner was a classic Christmas feast and while us vegetarians couldn’t eat the amazing-looking turkey, we did have candied sweet potatoes, cauliflower, green beans, roast potatoes and more food than I can remember or was able to eat. For dessert, American pumpkin pie. I had to improvise as I had never done it with  – gasp! – real pumpkins, but it was actually pretty amazing. Recipe care of Smitten Kitchen.

The night wrapped up with my new favorite band, The Baseballs, which led to a conversation about The Nutbush (don’t ask how we got on to that – I have no idea), which of course led to a demonstration of the dance, which led to the Time Warp, which led to Abba, which led to just general prancing around the living room. Keep in mind there were nine of us total and, well, it was quite a site to behold.

At the end of the day, Christmas may not have felt like the Christmas of my childhood, but it was one of the most fun days I’ve experienced while traveling, I was with a group of brilliantly funny people and, most likely, we just created a new tradition altogether.

Hope everyone’s holiday has been merry and I wish you all rainbows and sunshine and puppy dog giggles in the new year!

See you on the other side,

Marian

Tagged as: Christmas, holiday, new zealand, traditions, travel