Despite having lived my entire life in New Zealand (except for a few months away in the rest of the world), I always imagine Christmas cold, dark, glowing with candlelight and smelling somewhere between Mrs Cratchit's Steamed Christmas pudding*, a pomander ball and a mandarin.
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| How I think of Christmas (view of my mantlepiece) |
But let's get real. Christmas in New Zealand is most often hot, and sunny and smells of new-mown lawn or hay or those gorgeous white Christmas lilies or smoky BBQ's or wet togs and wet dog at the beach. It's wearing sun hats and jandals and going to the do-it-yourself shop to get something for Dad's summer project, and the Jaycees are having a fundraiser sausage sizzle at the doorway.
It's relaxing and extends well into January, and all the kids have at least 6 weeks off school. It's the Big Holidays and catching up with friends and drinks and eating in the garden and swallows skimming over the river, bright summer flowers and not a robin nor a skerrick of holly to be seen.
This is a card that I bought just for you. I really did. Inside it says "Warmest wishes for this wonderful season".
But pretend, when I sent it to you, I scribbled that out and wrote:
This is the closest we get to a white Christmas in New Zealand.
Big Christmas hugs and peace and love and fun to you and your friends and family this Christmas time, wherever you are.
Love from Kate at The Last Visible Dog.
XXXXXX
*"Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top."
Thanks for the card. Have a wonderful day.
ReplyDeleteXX Adrian.
DeleteSteamed pudding mmmm ~ And Happy Christmas to you too Katherine.
ReplyDeleteCarol - steamed pud - very comforting whatever the latitude.
DeleteThanks for the card..enjoy your sunshine..we have gale force winds and rain here, the local river burst it's banks overnight and flooded the valley..luckily no houses in this part of the river valley, but one of the footpaths over the river by the ford was well flooded !
ReplyDeleteI hope the winds didn't bother you too much Frances and you had a lovely day despite.
DeleteMerry Christmas and may you feel joy throughout the festive season. I live in Darwin, 6 degrees south of the equator. It is rather damp as we wait at the edge of another tropical cyclone. It is a wet, cloudy and cool Christmas here. We will be using the good dishes, eating the celebratory food, and phoning distant family members. As I write this message I am wearing my incredibly kitsch Christmas pyjamas, which will continue to remind me to keep the Christmas ideals for weeks and weeks.
ReplyDeleteThank you Louise Michie. I enjoyed 'seeing' you in your pj's. I also liked your reference to the Christmas ideals. I'm going to keep our decorations up until Aftermas.
DeleteI suppose that Christmas is dependant of snow, log fires, and plum pudding, wherever in the world you live. You'll just have to pretend. Have a good day, Cro xx
ReplyDeleteCro - this morning we've been singing all our conversations to the tune of 'Oh Christmas Tree'. It's been getting really silly. And fun.
DeleteSurely at the bottom of the card, it says New Bealand? Perhaps it's a mis-spelling - maybe it should say Newbie Land? Ho! Ho! Ho! Once more - Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteAs often YP, you have focussed on a whimsy in my blog.
DeleteBut I agree, compared to Ye Olde Countrie, we should be Newbie Land. I'll ask our glorious leader to change the name. He's changing everything else with less logic, so he'll probably be quite amenable to the suggestion.
I hope that you had a lovely day Katherine. I thought that I'd commented earlier but I obviously got carried away by the washing-day smell of the pudding. Somehow it didn't appeal to me.
ReplyDeleteWe did indeed have a lovely day GB.
DeleteI suspect you have to be conditioned by the delicious taste of the pudding that inevitably follows to find the smell of the pudding-cloth appealing.
Merry Christmas to You and thank You for the lovely White Christmas Card from New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteThe same to you Kirsten. I hope you had a lovely day.
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