A Kiwi Christmas

Auckland, New Zealand

You’ll be happy (or envious, probably both 😉 to know that by the time December rolled around down here we managed to get full swing into summer.

And while it’s not exactly Florida temperatures, the added sunshine mixed with a stubborn defiance of the weather that the Kiwis must have inherited from their British ancestors makes for another warm-weather festive season.

Everyone seems happy about an outside barbecue for Christmas…except for Santa who you’d think would learn to bring a few changes of clothes on his round-the world jaunt. Perhaps it’s always cold up at the jet stream? Flying that fast probably does generate a lot of wind-chill.

Interesting fact about Christmas in the summer: Tourism works completely differently. You know how in America people go inside to enjoy a warm home with family, go out to restaurants to eat and attend Christmas parties? In Auckland everyone just…goes out. As in, out of the city.

We’re told the beachside campgrounds are slammed right now.

Remember how we said Kiwis are really nice? Well, for Christmas dinner we got invited over to one of our friend’s houses…one of our friends who also happens to be a Kiwi Chef. One of our Kiwi friends who is a chef that competed on New Zealand Master Chef TV show!

Yeah, Christmas Day we celebrate the birth of our savior with a glass of fine New Zealand wine at an outdoor summer barbecue with our TV chef friend. So, basically win on that one.

As thanks to our host and in order to continue to further our attempts to spread the unique joys of Americana we volunteered to bring over the holy grail of Tiffany’s Floridian culinary upbringing: Key Lime pie. This was before we realized that Key Lime pie is, in New Zealand, a completely unheard of delicacy. (How do these people live!? 😉

Upside: we get to introduce our chef friend to a new food.

Downside: We had to get a little creative on the ingredients. For example, they have never heard of graham crackers over here, much less gram cracker pie crust.

And being as it was so popular last year here is your annual installment of our tiki-lounge ukulele caroling. So have a glass of mai-tai, crank your heater to sweltering and enjoy your taste of a tropical Christmas:

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

White Christmas

(yeah, not exactly true but hey, those are the words of the song 😉

Silent Night

 

Want more ukulele Christmas carols? Check out last year’s songs by clicking on “Christmas 2010“

 

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures. If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!