A NZ Christmas

Liz here, with news of our Christmas. (I’m sorry for the delay in posting. Because New Zealand apparently is against wireless internet, as I’ve come to believe, they decided to shut off the wireless at the public library for two weeks. Add to that the fact that our new flat is an internet-free zone, and none of the cafes here offer wireless, and it makes it very difficult to keep up with emails and blogs and applications to grad school and various things of that nature. I am currently huddled under a tree across the street from a hotel, stealing their $4/half hour wireless.)

Christmas here was bizarre. There is no other word for it. It was hot and brilliantly sunny; people were out riding jet skis and sky-diving, laying on the beach and sailing their yachts. I didn’t hear a single Christmas carol, and saw very few Christmas trees, lights, or giant inflatable santas. You know how the U.S. starts getting psyched for Christmas about mid-October, and the malls, yards, and shops of America become a sea of tinsel, lights, reindeer, and snowmen? Well, NZ goes too far in the opposite direction. On our walk to work on Christmas Day, Jen and I tried counting signs that it was a holiday. By the time we’d finished the fifteen-minute walk through the entire city of Paihia, we’d seen a jet ski rental employee wearing a Santa hat, a couple of elderly tourists in fake reindeer antlers, a bit of blue and red tinsel wrapped around a sign, and one Christmas tree inside a beachfront restaurant. That. Was. Literally. It.


Speaking of walking to work, the downside (or, one of the many downsides) of working in the service industry is that when everyone else wants to celebrate, you get to work twice as hard. Jen, Jamie, Lewis, and I all worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. I was at work until one am Christmas Eve; on Christmas Day, Jen and I went in at eleven am and proceeded to run about like ants without taking a breath or sitting down until six pm.


I typically I had over two dozen tables to myself and was kept busy lying to everyone that their food would soon be out. Behind the bar, Jen was churning out eight to ten crème brulees per second, covered in powdered sugar and simultaneously pouring pints. At one point I handed her a docket for thirteen more desserts and thought about ducking.

By six it looked like a tornado had swept through town and somehow missed everything except the Swiss Café; we were the only place open for lunch in all of Paihia, and everyone decided they felt like Swiss food. When we finally closed, Kelly handed out glasses of champagne and we basically inhaled them. “My glass was gone in two seconds,” Jen points out. “Literally.”

With that said, Christmas had its points of loveliness. Our friend Dan, the one from England who moved to Auckland a few weeks ago, is here for the holidays, so we had a full house of lively company. Of course Jen and I had each other, which I was terribly grateful for. And there were the beautiful moments.

There was coming home from work at Christmas Eve and everyone collapsing together in the living room; friends over, lights on the tree, cookies on the coffee table. There was Christmas morning; we got up at seven am and gave each other our gifts, cuddled around the tree, the floor gradually disappearing under a sea of wrapping paper. There was opening our packages from home and having little signs of Michigan filter into the flat: our old stockings, my mom’s caramel corn, photos of family, heartfelt messages on Christmas cards. And there was Christmas night, when we opened Christmas crackers and ate nachos and mashed potatoes (yes, we decided to go with a very traditional meal) wearing our paper hats.

All the same, Jen and I switched the song whenever “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” came on my playlist, and we pledged together on Christmas Day that we’ll never miss a Christmas at home again, if we have anything to say about it. At three am here I called home; it was nine am there, and the presents had just been unwrapped. My family was all there, preparing to sit down to breakfast together. I’d had a lovely evening, but there are some times when you know your place – and my place just then was 8,600 miles away, at the long table with a steaming plate of waffles, among my lovely, lovely family.

Jen here – Liz and I really, really felt the absence of family: As everyone knows, Christmas is not about the trees or the cookies or the school vacation or snow – it’s about family. 100%. On Christmas Eve, I broke down and kept thinking that I was in the wrong place; that as much as I love New Zealand and the friends that I have here, I just knew that I belonged in Hamtramck, with my house upside down while my parents repaint our kitchen for the 3rd time, with my dog who always takes up ¾ of my bed when he sleeps with me, with my brother and sister teasing everyone….Man, all I wanted to do at that moment was fly home to be home with all of that. So I drove to this really awesome beach (yes! I’m learning to drive a stick shift – on the left side of the road!), and called my mom. And an ocean away, she did what any good mom would do: she read me “The Polar Express” over the phone, making me feel much better.