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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