Merry Kiwi Christmas

After picking the first of our Christmas cherry tomatoes from the balcony, we headed to the beach, as Kiwis do, for a day of sun, sand and Santa. Paul tried out his new boogie board on the waves, and we ate seasonal treats like strawberries and cherries along with the traditional egg nog pie! Yum!

True Kiwi Claus

Donning the traditional Kiwi BBQ attire is our friend Anz. They also choose to leave Santa a can of beer with Christmas cake (brandied fruitcake) on the night before Christmas, do you sense a trend?

the scent of the season

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, or is it? It’s my first Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere and already the invitations for holiday BBQ’s are piling up. Rather than holly berries, I have tomato vines on my porch about to burst with shiny red fruit.

Roses are in bloom and the scent of night jasmine fills the air on our evening walks. No corner stands bursting with Vermont pines and mistletoe like in Manhattan, but lavender hedges nestled between citrus trees line the sidewalks.

In an attempt to bring some sense of the holiday spirit into our sparsely decorated beachside apartment, I had to resort to replacing our normal citrus toilet freshener with a forest pine one. Now I get a whiff of the proper New England Christmas spirit every time I flush.