Celebrating Christmas in New Zealand

Christmas Parades are held in towns around New Zealand

The festivities start in New Zealand with late November Christmas parade, We start buying those special treats early in November, and some even start decorating the outside of their homes with christmas lights in mid November. It is truly a spectacular sight. Christmas in the Park is a very popular FREE event and people turn up in their crowds armed with their chilli bins, comfy seats and delicious food, to listen to celebrities sing those favourite christmas songs - rain or shine.The Schools break up in December for 2 months.

The kiwis do not seem to share the same passion for sending Christmas cards, so don't be disappointed if you send a Christmas card to everyone in work and receive none.  It just doesn't seem to be expected here! We start sending our Christmas cards to our family overseas in early November, we can send cards by economy post up until 12 November and it can save you heaps!

I love christmas shopping in New Zealand. The shopping malls supply a fabulous service and after you have done your xmas shopping you can line up to have your pressys wrapped.

Santas Christmas Parade in Auckland
29th November 2009

Christmas Work Parties and Get Together's

We have really great work parties, some places of work tend to arrange parties well in advance for Christmas, and supply a fine spread, entertainment and drinks.  Everyone lets their hair down and just have fun! 

Our pony club has a great party, led by Father Christmas. Members buy a secret present for another member only a small gift, probably from the $2 Shop.  Ponies and horses get dressed up, the riders get dressed up, the parents enjoy a glass or two of wine.  Its just great fun!

As seems to be tradition we meet up with other UK friends, Christmas eve and have fish and chips on the beach.  There only used to be a few of us but numbers seem to grow with each passing year.

We still buy too much food but don't end up eating it, we are too busy spending our time at the beach or visiting friends and sharing laughter and barbeque platters, and yet we still crave for our old  UK Christmas celebrations. We must be crazy. Christmas is not so comercialised here! They must love Christmas though because we celebrate it twice. When we first arrived here in New Zealand, we could not understand why a lot of the restaurants and shops decorated for Christmas in June.  We soon found out that it was mid-winter Christmas, where you can go out for Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.  We soon got into the swing of things and as my birthday is in early July, I invited some of our friends and we celebrated a true english style Turkey Christmas dinner.  We even played that good old favourite Christmas carols CD. 
Check out this website I found with some traditional Kiwi songs .

Christmas Dinner

Christmas dinner here tends to consist of glazed ham, turkey and fish, with salads, coleslaw and roasted potatoes, kumera (sweet potatoes) , pumpkin, carrots, onions and garlic and seasoning, chopped into chunks and just thrown into the oven and all with gravy.

It takes a bit of getting used to but we love it now we have got used to it.  We still get plum puddings and christmas cake, but a good old favourite is pavlova and kiwi fruit and strawberries (strawberries tend to go up in price over the Christmas).

Christmas is a true family get together, and although the majority of our family is overseas, we have several adopted families where we spend christmas, and for us it is a special time, the kiwis are so warm and friendly, we really appreciate being invited as part of their family.

Or we sometimes get together with our own new found family member.  We didn't know we had any family here until we decided to move to New Zealand.

Off To the Family Bach

Once Christmas day is over, there seems to be a tendency to take down all the trimmings and head for holiday batches. Read more about the tradition of the kiwi bach.

It also seem tradition that some families all take off together and camp before the Christmas period until well into the New Year camping in large groups. It is really difficult finding a campsite over the Christmas period.  People start booking early in the year.

Streets and beaches are lined with blazing red sky lines of the Pohutukawa Tree.  A truly spectacular sight. Oh I wish it was Christmas every day. All I really miss is my family. Will just have to win the lottery and bring them all over here!

Visit Artists Den and Art Gallery in Auckland for some great NZ art Click