Trading in SNOW for SAND. My New Zealand Christmas!

DO THEY KNOW ITS CHRISTMAS TIME AT ALL *drops heavy beat*

PEOPLE WOOOO *choir* LET THEM KNOW ITS CHRISTMAS TIME 

Amanda texted this to me last week and all I could think of was seriously... do they? It is 23 degrees outside! Seeing christmas lights and decoration on houses almost seemed wrong. Like those people who leave their lights up all year round. But it did help to get into the mood. 

Here are other things that help me get in the Christmas spirit:

The Santa Parade

 This women decorates her house with hundreds of lights and Santa Clauses to raise money for Cancer.

A lot of people donate Santa's to add to her collection.

Eating Ice Cream with Candy Canes

Decorating Christmas cookies

Roller Skating…
Not quite the same but it was fun!

To start the Christmas season the chickenskins planned a special Christmas dinner: PIZZA! Haha it was the easiest to cook for so many people. BUT for dessert we all made sweets that remind us of Christmas at home. So this is what we came up with:

 Sweden - Swedish Meatballs

Well Amanda made Swedish meatballs (because I begged her!) I’ll say Ikea does not do them justice! 

Finland - Finish Joulutorttu (Christmas Tart)

Germany - Plaetzchen (Christmas Cookie)

I made Shortbread Cookies! Maybe not Canadian but definitely a tradition in our home. 

It was an evening full of food, friends and lots of laughter! 

Look at that spread! 

*Fast forward to Christmas Eve*

The kids begged all day to open a gift before they went to bed. And so I caved and showed them that I had something for them. Dinner was pretty funny, Finn kept telling Maggie to hurry up so they could open their gift. I had told Ann and Steve about a tradition that we do at home. Where we get to open 1 present on Christmas Eve and it was new pjs for us to wear for Christmas morning. So after the kids opened their pjs and put them on, they surprised me with a gift. 3 guesses what it was…

Pyjamas!!!

I have been told by my European friends that we have Christmas all wrong. They celebrate Christmas on the eve of the 24th like we celebrate on the morning of the 25th. Weirdos... I know! So after we exchanged gifts and cleaned up I went to meet Amanda. She had the idea of staying up until 12 so that way we could celebrate both Christmases in one night!   But man did that make for a short nights sleep! My alarm went off at 6:30 and I dragged my butt downstairs to join in the fun. The morning was spent opening gifts and playing with the new toys. I felt like a kid again playing with Maggie and her barbies, dolls and crafts. Finn was too busy with his new Minecraft lego to notice what was going on. 

Playing with some new toys!
Man I look tired…
but that's what you get when you only get 5 hours of sleep!

Around 12 we sat down to a delicious Christmas lunch that Ann had prepared. We opened gift crackers and got glitter everywhere! For dessert we had a Kiwi classic: Pavlova. 

Yum! 

Getting the ham ready

Pavlova

Perfection!

Look at that meal! 

Merry Christmas!

My Weekend with Sinah

The life of an Au Pair is constantly changing. Since we all arrive at different times and have different contracts we also leave at different times too. So this weekend it was Sinah’s turn. So we jammed the weekend with some must do’s while in New Zealand. 

Friday night we went to the Silo Cinema to watch Sinah’s favourite Christmas movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, outside at the Viaduct Harbour. It was kind of ironic to watch that movie because it is an unconventional Christmas movie and this year I am having an unconventional Christmas. So it was quite fitting! 

The Harbour Bridge in the background.
The movie is shown on the side of a big silo.

Saturday morning Sinah and I woke up bright and early and headed into the city to catch a ferry to the island of Waiheke. We grabbed some coffee and almond croissants for breakfast from a Saturday morning Market in Britomart. The sun was shining as we boarded the ferry for our 30 minute ride to Waiheke. 

Auckland City

Rangitoto

Once we arrived on the island, we hopped on a bus which gave us a quick hour tour of part of the island. We got to see some beautiful new views and beaches. We drove up Delamore road and passed the Delamore Lodge and our bus driver joked around that if we needed to stay the night on the island that this hotel would be a good pick for about $800-900 a night! And he added that you do get a free breakfast with that price! It’s mostly used when famous people come and visit New Zealand. He also pointed out a set of houses, the one being the most expensive house on the island worth $33 million! The second HOUSE was the husband’s man cave... Nice eh! We made a view pit stops on the way. 

The View of the Harbour from Delamore Road

Little Palm Beach

Relaxing on Onetangi Beach

Fancy meeting you guys here! 

Then we had the rest of the day to explore on our own. I love markets so our first stop was at a local market to check out the food and gifts the island had to offer. While looking at an antique booth we sifted through a bowl of little collector spoons and low and behold I found a Canadian one and of course had to buy it! I will give it to Finn and Maggie for Christmas. Hopefully there won’t be too many fights over it. You know cause who wouldn’t want to use a Canada spoon! 

Waiheke is famous for it’s wine, there are around 30 vineyards on the island! So of course we had to make a stop and see what all the fuss was about. Stonyridge Vineyard was a stunning place as I’m sure they all are. Sinah and I decided to share a wine tasting so we could get a small taste of 4 different local wines from the vineyard. We spent the rest of the day exploring a few beaches and soaking in the sun! It was a perfect day and it was still far from being over. 

Every year Coca Cola presents Christmas in the Park. It is one of the biggest outdoor music festivals of the year. They set up a stage and a line of New Zealand singers, dancers, choirs and bands to perform in the Auckland Domain. This year there were around 200 000 people to show up! And it wouldn’t be an Auckland celebration without a grand display of fireworks to finish the night! 

Too finish the weekend Sinah had a 2 for 1 voucher for a sailing trip. We boarded the Ted Ashby, which I learned was an actual person who built boats back in the day. We also learned that boats were mainly used to build most of Auckland city because it was easier to use then the roads. Before we set sail they let off a canon sound that shook the entire dock. I have no idea why but it was pretty cool! We used the engines to get out into the open water and luckily conditions were good to open the sails. The crew got us to help them, it was great! It reminded me of the summers I spent with the Clement family sailing Lake Ontario. We got really lucky with the weather because just as I was driving Sinah home we got the biggest rain/thunderstorm I’ve seen in the 4 months of being here. 

Thanks Caption Sam for the picture!

Working hard to get those sails up

And we're off!

Now Sinah is off on her big adventure to Australia and I can’t wait to hear about it when she gets back in February before actually leaving to go back to Germany. 

ich liebe dich