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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Christmas Commercialization

Our plan to take the commercialization out of Christmas backfired somewhat when Charlie's preschool took a field trip to the local toy store. The teachers told them to look for the gift they want Santa to bring them for christmas and took a picture of the kid next to the gift. Charlie wanted a Thomas the train boat with a lighthouse and it was about $100. ???

On a side note we have charlie's first parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. Should be fun!








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