Summer Christmas in New Zealand

Instead of swirling snow, mulled wine and the scent of pine, you’re barbecuing on a sunny beach. Christmas in the summer holidays in New Zealand.

written by: Mea Barath – Continent Surfer

In our Facebook group, the question was asked: what is one thing you couldn’t bring with you from home? Someone answered: Christmas!

What does Christmas mean to you?

Every year, we cheered for snow to fall on Christmas Day! White Christmas: could it get any more beautiful? Sparkling snow, crunching under our boots, noses frozen in the biting cold, fingers kneading snowballs warmed by mulled wine (spiced apple juice for kids!) with orange slices on the rim of the mug. Behind the Christmas tree, a freshly built snowman peeks in through the window. The scent of pine wafts through the house, the cold outside is pleasantly offset by the cosiness inside, candlelight, soft blankets and gingerbread. It’s all Christmas. It’s getting dark early, the streets are lit up with tiny lights to remind you of the festive season, and the houses are illuminated with decorations. By the time the children arrive home from their Christmas stroll, frozen to the bone, a miracle happens: gift bags are lined up under a beautifully decorated tree. Gift-giving with Christmas carols playing in the background, followed by a festive dinner around the family table.

But what does a Kiwi Christmas look like?

Seaside

In New Zealand, Christmas is mostly associated with the beach. The festive attire is swimwear, the festive menu is barbecue, the festive smell is the smell of barbecue spices and sizzling meat mingling with the salty air of the sea. Seagulls sing in the background. Very different, right?

Food

The traditional New Zealand Christmas menu is roast turkey, adapted from Anglo-Saxon traditions, served with gravy and a variety of vegetables. The Christmas pudding is made special by a cognac sauce. Other typical New Zealand Christmas desserts include pies with a variety of fillings and cakes flavoured with dried fruit, known as fruit breads or loafs. Fish dishes and seasonal summer fruit also appear on the Christmas table or picnic blanket.

If your family has Maori roots, traditional hangi will certainly be on the menu. Hangi is a special “underground cooking” in which fish and chicken, vegetables and kumara (sweet potatoes) are wrapped in flax leaves (nowadays more in cloth bags and tinfoil). The food is placed on hot stones at the bottom of a pit dug in the ground, covered with a damp cloth and buried in earth. Cooking takes three to four hours, and as Christmas Day is a national holiday, families have time to cook and socialise. The result is tender meat and vegetables infused with a smoky, earthy flavour. We had the pleasure of tasting it, it is truly special and delicious!

Christmas tree

The symbol of Christmas in New Zealand is the evergreen, red-flowered pohutukawa tree, or Christmas myrtle. It is an important plant in the indigenous Maori belief system. The souls of the departed enter the ocean through the roots of the pohutukawa tree and begin their migration to Hawaiki, the ancestral home of the Polynesian people. Just in time for Christmas, it brings its red, broom-like flowers and covers its beautiful red canopy. It is a favourite Christmas decoration. Although New Zealand families also erect a classic real or rather artificial Christmas tree in their homes (many as early December), the pohutukawa tree, found in parks, beaches, and forests across the country, is often featured in holiday cards, poems, and songs.

The most famous pohutukawa is an ancient, gnarled and twisted tree that stands alone on the windswept rocky summit of Cape Reinga.

Santa Claus in beach slippers

The presents are brought by Santa Claus, or Hana Kōkō in Māori. In New Zealand, one of the popular Christmas gifts is the slipper we call a flip-flop, the “jandal”. Even Santa Claus wears them – who we wouldn’t call him that here in New Zealand, what a misnomer! Let’s stick with Father Christmas, then.

Nor are the Christmas songs the same as we are used to. As well as the Maori version of Silent Night, there have been unique adaptations, such as a Kiwi version of Jingle Bells. Frames of this song give you an insight into the festive days of Christmas in New Zealand, watch and listen, it’s worth Christmas in New Zealand.

Santa Parade and beach

Since the early 1900s, department stores in New Zealand, like in other countries around the world, have been luring shoppers into town centres by having Santa Clauses waiting for young children in the shops. Santa usually makes a special journey to New Zealand. In the 1930s, Santa arrived in Christchurch on an elephant, other cities and department stores brought Santa in by plane, and in 1937, Santa arrived in Auckland by parachute. Over the years, he was joined by elves to entertain the crowds. And so the Christmas Parade was born. Today, parades are organised by charity groups or local government, with the help of sponsors, to help pay for the hundreds of extravagant costumes and giant floats.

On 26 December, families pack up the leftovers from the Christmas menu and spend the day at the beach. Groups of friends and family can be seen relaxing under the pohutukawa tree, chatting, playing a friendly game of cricket or rugby and swimming in the ocean.

So a Kiwi Christmas is a family-sized pavlova followed by a nap under the pohutukawa tree. A New Zealand Christmas is sand between your toes, salt seawater and the smell of barbecue. Blankets and beach slippers.

Some people still wonder why it’s so impossible to bring Christmas with you to New Zealand?

Meri Kirihimete, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to all our dear readers!

Get in the Christmas spirit abroad, creatively!

Don’t be discouraged, the Christmas spirit can be experienced abroad! Don’t look for the old, create something new! Adapt to local customs and traditions, and create your own system of traditions, combining elements of Christmas at home and abroad.

Did you know?

There are no snakes in New Zealand! That’s right, none! If ophidiophobia has you lying awake at night, then New Zealand is the home for you. Unlike its neighbour, Australia, where ALL the crazy snakes reside, New Zealand is free of all slithery folk, including garden snakes, pythons, vipers, and anacondas. That means you can sleep easy here!

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Source(s):

Original article: Nyári karácsony Új-Zélandon Translated by: BOGI – CONTINENT SURFER

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