Father Christmas

Liam with Embassy Santa

In many ways I feel like Jason and I slipped into this Christmas without a Santa game-plan.  Charlie's curious mind is firing away questions about Santa (How does Santa's sleigh fly? Why do elves wear gloves? How will Santa get to our house if we don't have a chimney???).   Reflecting on my own childhood, I was devastated when my 7-year old younger sister (I was 9) broke the news to me that Santa wasn't real.  I had become a little evangelist for the existence of Santa, and I just really felt deceived and disappointed...  Equipped with these memories, I was ready to raise our kids letting them participate in Santa activities but being truthful about the fact that Santa wasn't real.  That is... until we were at Charlie's preschool and in front of his little buddies he said that his teachers told him Santa WAS real.  It hit me that we were possibly about to create the bratty, know-it-all little kid that cruelly dashes the dreams of his little friends...  Can Charlie handle the truth in a mature manner without declaring it to everyone he sees?  At four years old??? I really don't think so...  So I feel like we are in a bit of a conundrum...   I think we will wrestle with this the rest of this Christmas season and pray for more vision for next Christmas.
So - we jumped full-throttle into Santa world this Christmas.  We saw the Santa parade last week, followed by Santa at preschool, Santa at an Embassy function and Santa at our playgroup.   I was startled by the final Santa encounter at playgroup.  A soft-spoken older gentlemen with a flowing white beard was Santa at our playgroup at the Anglican church (I suspect he is one of the Anglican priests?). Unfortunately his Santa suit was missing an undershirt resulting in thick gray and white chest hair erupting from his Father Christmas suit.  It was weird, and I chalked it up to a "Kiwi" thing, until I saw the hushed reactions of other mom's in the group.  Thankfully, they thought it was also a little strange...

Sexy Santa

Preschoolers welcoming Santa (look at Charlie's excitement)

Kid's singing "Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney"

Santa calls Charlie's name

Charlie extremely hesitantly received his gift 

 Santa calls Liam's name

Charlie tells Embassy Santa he wants a motorbike for Christmas

Summer is Here!

Finally - we are experiencing the amazing heat of New Zealand sun - summer has arrived! Although the temperature gauge is only reading 73 degrees - the sun is HOT. Unfortunately due to the ozone hole above NZ the sun can be fierce. Our friends from Australia complain of how quickly they burn in the sun even compared to southern Australia. In conclusion, I think you can add at least 10 (maybe 15) degrees to the forecasted temp.

We are enjoying the buildup to Christmas - the boys sat on 3 Santa's laps over the past 5 days (I will recap in a future post). There is a giant Christmas tree (made entirely of lights) in the city center near our home that we have yet to see lit up due to the 9pm sunset. I did a cookie exchange with some of the women from the embassy (thank you Joanne for the Mexican wedding cookie inspiration from last year). This is truly our first Christmas together as a little family and we are slowly establishing new traditions -it's really exciting.

Kiwis aren't bashful with the word Christmas. A "holiday" is a vacation and I haven't once heard "happy holidays.". The city puts on a Santa parade (complete with baby Jesus float). We went to the city park to sing Christmas Carols by "Candlelight" (or Carols in the bright sun at 8pm).

It's just really refreshing to be free to say Merry Christmas without any of the PC weirdness that has crept into the US. It reminds me of my childhood in the US in the 80s - yes, the Christmas lights and the consumerism is here, but scaled back 10-fold. It's just, well, nice.

As an aside, we had a celebrity sighting tonight at the beach.
Jason pulled the boys in our Burley bike trailer to meet some friends for dinner and relaxing time at the beach. Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords was sitting next to our group hanging out at the beach with his family. Funny enough, he was sporting a child carrier in the back of his bike for his little one. In true Kiwi fashion no one gawked and they were able to just be a cute little Wellington family.

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Tresses

We were really spoiled in the US with Aunt Maria's regular haircuts for the boys.   While I like the "wild"look of unkept Kiwi boy tresses -  my boys start to get this homeless abandoned-child look that I guess we want to avoid.  I bought a pair of hair shears about 6 months ago, but finally got enough nerve to cut Liam's hair last week.  Charlie's hair is a bit coarser with lots of waves - very forgiving.  Liam's hair is very fine and stick-straight.

Here is the outcome.  Jason came home and said he looked like a girl.  I do see a resemblance with Aunt Emily and Aunt Juliet when they were little.  It's really uneven in the back, and I couldn't figure out how to take any off the top.  Let's say it's a work in progress.  

We are friends with a family in Wellington who have three sons (ages 15-20).  The mom cut all of the boys' hair.  They were watching old home videos and noticed the funky haircuts.  One son commented on how much she has improved over the years with their haircuts.  I guess it shows I need to start somewhere...

Blog Resurrection

Okay... so it's many a few weeks, ahem... months since I last wrote.  I don't want to abandon this blog - it's just been a pretty intense few months.  I will elaborate more (hopefully!) because I want to have a good solid blog run over the next month or two. 
So, after what felt like thirteen Thanksgiving celebrations, we were really excited to usher in the Christmas season.  Jason and I realized that this is our first Christmas away from extended family.  In our eight years of marriage, we've never actually bought a Christmas tree for our family.   We had a little disagreement over buying a real or fake tree.  Given that it's summertime in NZ, the pine trees are all pollinating and spreading their little seeds and it can cause pain to allergy sufferers.  We decided to give a real tree a try, and we'd exile it to the patio, if it caused any allergic reactions.   We've had it for over a week now, and so far it's only filled our house with yummy pine smells.
Here is a picture of picking out the tree at the city tree lot (where the tree was recently cut from the forests near our home).  :)    We didn't bring any rope to tie it to the roof of the tree, so we just jammed it in perpendicular to the car and drove carefully home.







    It's really been fun to pull out ornaments that we've collected over the past 8 years, but never had the opportunity to hang up on our tree. 
It's going to be a very different Christmas, but so far, I'm thankful for the quieter season.  We will miss our family dreadfully, but it's a unique time to just be a little Roberson family celebrating our summery Christmas.  Weird...

Charlie's 4th Birthday choo choo and duckies

More fun with Daddy

Broccoli and Balsamic Vinegar

Belly button = "Butney"




Dr Suess Art Store - we had no idea Dr Suess had amazing pieces of art outside what was in his great books.




Model Train Expo

Charlie and Grayson tackle the Michigan guy.

Heli on the Waterfront

Seal on the Waterfront





Celebrating Wellington's sunny day after a spell of windy, rainy ones... And our 18 to 3 indoor soccer victory.





On Charlie's and my walk to work/pre-school this morning




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Weekend fun with Daddy

Jolly Jumpa!

Fat Free Ice Cream

Wellington Phoenix box seats!







Urban car park biking

Mussels and Belgian beer at Llueven

Bye!

Jason was out of town early this week and so the boys love to mirror their daddy with their own work trip.

The weather was GORGEOUS and Charlie had a fever yesterday so we skipped/wagged/bunked (US, Kiwi and British slang) preschool and spent the afternoon at one of my favorite beaches in Wellington.






Sally and Anna with the boys

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Don't Leave Me Charlie!

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Seems This Slide Would Be Illegal in the US

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Backbencher's on Fire (again...)

We are finally back to Wellington.  I have SO MUCH to say and reflect on over the past 2 months.  It was an incredible time back in the US.  I have such wonderful memories, and it really was a gift to back for such a long time.  I was so thankful to reconnect with family and friends, but due to different circumstances, I wasn't able to see everyone that I wanted to see.   I'm sorry for really terrible correspondence - I'm finally digging out of my e-mail.  I'm almost to early August!

I will scatter a few reflection/pictures  over the next week or so (hopefully!).

In the meantime, we were welcomed to Backbencher Fire Part 2 this afternoon (check out the news article here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7764140/Backbencher-pub-on-fire).  Charlie said the thing he missed the most about New Zealand was his toys (he's honest I suppose).  He said the toy he missed the most was his red fire engine.  For the past week, he hasn't stopped talking about The Backbencher Fire Part 1 and was excited to wake up to his nap to the whole kit-and-kaboodle again.   Honestly, we had the best view in the city, but it was a little disturbing that our smoke alarms weren't going off given our proximity to the fire...

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