We're a few steps in to 2015 now, but let me share my Christmas and New Years with you :-)
This was my first Christmas spent in the Southern hemisphere and hence my first summer Christmas! Begone with the usual ideas of Christmas, this year was a mishmosh of traditions; we satisfied a good mix of German, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Chinese and English traditions.
Ten of us traveled to Coromandel to our Christmas home on the 23rd December. The bach would house us for three days and be the venue for an unforgettable occasion.
When we arrived we had important business to attend to: the bach needed a tree. And even though we didn't have a real tree AND Adele's decorating style caused some debate, it was eventually set in place to overlook proceedings.
 |
| The Christmas Crew minus Thomas |
 |
| Preparations for the Carbonara |
 |
| The Swedes get their jam on |
 |
| And Louise and Adele looking larvely! |
We sat down as a family on this evening to eat Spaghetti Carbonara and then have a little shindig. We played more Gocha, in which Maren and Adele were undoubtedly the biggest winners! And we partied through the night to Christmas music. When Thomas, Sara and me remained, it seemed only sensible to explore the nearby beach.
 |
| Gocha, Maren! |
 |
| Pull a pose (I think)! |
 |
| So attractive at the beach... |
After a successful exploration this beach became our point of interest on Christmas Eve. With a volley ball, some swimming and a deck of cards the day floated away as we all relaxed.
 |
| At the beach! |
 |
| Volleyball practice |
We also looked forward to the evening meal which was a chance for all but the Brits to cook a national dish (seasonal or not). We enjoyed Schniztel, meatballs, pickled herring, coke-cola chicken, potato salad, gingerbread and chocolate truffles. Amazing meal! And finished off with Marens Norwegian touch, Almond Rice Pudding. The beauty of this desert is it included one whole almond which could appear in anybodies dish. The owner had to hide it from everybody else and won a prize at the end. And the winner was... Maren! It's almost as if she fixed it haha!
 |
| Before the international meal |
 |
| Paulines finished gingerbread to be decorated by Adele! |
 |
| Secret Santa presents delivered by Santa! |
 |
| And presents greatly enjoyed |
Christmas Eve was rounded off with more fun and games, only this time Maren prepared a game for the group. In teams of three, we answered a NZ questionnaire, Articulate (again NZ themed) and creating a song, poem or dance themed around Christmas which were performed at the end. The performances were great and included; Adele, Beni and Louise singing their own version of the 12 days of Christmas; Dannii, Thomas and Emilie dancing to "Rocking around the Christmas Tree"; and Pauline, Sara and Me writing a poem themed on everybody at the Christmas bach.
 |
| Our games-host, Maren! |
After more night time shenanigans (including Pauline having a very emotional night and crying on everybody's shoulder) the last four standing again visited the beach (me, Adele, Beni and Maren). It was nice watching as the sun rose in the area and funnier still as Adele went YOLO and went swimming without her costume. A very different Christmas morning.
Not long after I had fallen asleep, Dannii woke me up. I had slept through it, but a loud siren had been playing outside apparently warning of a Tsunami. This wasn't what I expected from a Christmas morning, but as the siren had stopped before I was woken up we knew it was a drill. I was very thankful as I had drunk a little to much to be worrying about a Tsunami. Back to bed.
AND THEN IT'S CHRISTMAS!
Waking up much later than any previous Christmas Day, we went to a different beach in the area. We did much more swimming and challenged some locals to Volleyball. The sun was once again glorious and the day was perfect.
We returned to cook. It was time for the Brits to prepare a traditional meal as our meal is very similar to the Kiwi's. In light of this, we changed our meat from Turkey to Ham, otherwise it was the food Brits all know and love. As the night before, the food was a raving success!
 |
| Christmas Dinner |
 |
| English Master Chefs! |
Antics were everywhere as we partied again to celebrate our last night at the bach. The Swedes showed all of us a traditional dance which they do around the Christmas tree. This turned in to an unplanned routine to "Rocking around the Christmas tree" and we all picked dance moves whilst literally rocking around the Christmas tree! I think this was the single highlight of the trip and a memory of Christmas I will never forget! Thanks to our Swedes, Sara and Emilie ;-)
And what night is complete without a trip to the beach? Scoring the hat-trick, me, Adele and Pauline went one last time to the local beach.
Though I couldn't spend Christmas with my family, I had an amazing time. I did miss people back home, but there's always next year :-) But for this year, thank you to my friends who made it amazing!
On leaving the bach the next day our car once again went to the beach to top up those tans.
And on the return journey dropping of Adele we ended up on the black
sands of Piha (the first beach I ever went to in NZ) and watched the
sunset. A great end to a great trip!
 |
| Great sunset |
Though we would meet most of the guys next week for New Year. We met in Ponsonby and ate the night away whilst playing Gocha, Gyn-Pong and a Norwegian version of Pass-the-Parcel (Maren is something of a game master!).
We watched the fireworks of the sky tower from afar and so my photo's don't do it justice, so I included a couple of googled versions too. A VERY LATE HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
 |
| Liam sniffed out this selfie and was right in there! |
Kia Ora,
Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment