A Belated Holiday Entry...

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Ok, so i know i am exactly a month out of date, but Merry Christmas and a Happy New year anyway. i would say that i have been very busy, but that would mostly be a lie, i just kept forgetting to update my blog. But now i have finished work entirely i felt i should make the effort before i move on to the next adventure...

Anyhew, Christmas was great. On Christmas Eve i did the traditional last minute shopping (which i have actually never done before!), did lots of baking as presents for the guys at the farm, packed my bags and headed for Paul and Jo's house. It was beautifully hot so promising to be a good traditional Kiwi Christmas. The first hour or so i spent with their girls, Maddie 5 and Caitlyn, 2 helping them clear up the bombsite that is their bedroom. i discovered that suppernanny would be ashamed of me as i am definately not strict enough and let them get away with too much, but it was quite fun. Paul delights in lying to his children and finding more elaborate stories to tell them, so over tea he told them that the next day was his birthday, and not Jesus', and so all the presents were for him. They werent overly convinced but still a little confused. After a bedtime story - The Christmas Story, just to set them straight - they headed to bed while we (inc 7 week old Ethan) settled down to watch a DVD.

The next morning Paul, Jo and Ethan went to milk the cows at 4.30 am (not sure how much help Ethan was!) while i looked after the girls. they were very merciful and stayed in bed until nearly 7 am. Caitlyn was up a little earlier, drawing and singing to herself, but as Maddie is profoundly deaf she didnt notice. After some origami getting her electronic cochlea implant transmitters in the right place in her ears (mostly me fiddling and Maddie explaining and trying to lip read through her hair!) we had breakfast (still in our jammies of course) watching a very PC playhouse disney episode where they celebrated all the major holidays of the season without properly explaining any of them! The others arrived around 7.30am and i held a very hungry Ethan while Jo had a shower. We then opened stockings and i was given a battery operated massager, which is really good for getting the kinks out of your shoulders from milking.

We headed to church slightly early as Jo sings and Paul plays bass in the band so i entertained the kiddies which they rehersed. Not long after Pastor Rob arrived and asked the girls what day it was today. In unison they replied, "daddy's birthday!". Deep, deep embarassment from Jo, Paul nearly fell over, with his guitar, he was laughing so much, and the shock and confusion on Rob's face was a picture. Jo's parents Sue and Selwyn joined us at church so we shared the responsibility of stopping the girls from applying their new lipsticks to everyone and keeping Ethan amused or asleep. The service was awesome, much more lively than at home. the talk was on having a "Merry" Christmas, but in the Kiwi accent, pronouned "Mary" and so focussed on the responsibilities and attitude of Mary over the birth of Jesus. The music was great, lots of modern versions of old carrols and stuff, and we had a great time.

After church the family headed home while i headed into town to help with a community lunch at St Stephen's Church. I didnt know anyone else helping out but they were really nice and i met lots of interesting people. After being kitted out with the essentail flashing santa hat (read that carefully!) i was delegated to chocolate sprinkles distribution amoung the pavlova decorators. I also got to cut up slices of chocolate brownie (and eat the crumbs!), clingfilm everything to within an inch of its life and run up and down stairs to the other kitchen with trays of meat and pots of veg. We had around 150 people to feed so there was an army of carvers with electric knives slicing up the ham, turkey and lamb, plus huge amounts of veg, roast potatoes, vats of gravy and loads and loads of pudding. There was an amazing mix of people there - several families with small children, couples and parents with disabled family members, lots of older folk, some in groups or couples, and several that just wandered in from the street on the day. Everyone seemed to have a good time and the food was great. We had a Santa who gave everyone a present, lots of christmas party music and one of the ladies warbled some carols during dinner. Everything was cleared away remarkably fast and we had enough left overs to provide a doggy bag for all the guests to take home. As i was off to a BBQ in the evening i got to take home a whole tray of chocolate brownies!! mmmmmmm!

Back at the Kurigers, they were out milking the cooos so we sat inside where it was cooler and played with the kids. Selwyn, Jo's dad, is the kind of guy taht everyone finds hilarously funny but is hideously embarassing if he is your own dad. i thought he was great. Jerrel, an American guy from our Fuel cell group, turned up as did Amy and a couple of others. We always do bring-and-share BBQs so mine was taken care of with the brownies. Afterwards we crashed out on the sofas, ate ice cream and ambrosia and watched shrek 3. well, most of it, we were all pretty tired for one reason or another so mostly we dozed!!

The next day, Boxing Day, i opened my presents while James slept in (he spent Christmas with some friends who work for a contractor up the road). We were supposed to be going to the races but it was chucking it down with rain so we watched DVDs at Amie's, went shopping (everywhere here has a Boxing Day Sale but isnt actually open on Boxing Day!!) and then to the Turf Bar, beside the race track, for the post-racing social, said to be Ashburton's biggest night of the year! overall, it was a pretty good Christmas. Having the little kids to spend it with made it feel quite special and real, but i did still really miss my family and friends. oh well, there is always next year!

A relatively uneventful week followed, lots of milking and some other boring jobs. It rained a lot but everyone was in a fairly good mood after the "holiday". Kiwis call Christmas the Silly Season, mainly because of the road toll from drink/fatigue driving, people on farms doing stupid things to hurt or kill themselves working long hours in the heat, and because it is summer holidays for the nation's wee ones. this means Lara and Isaac are on the farm a lot more than normal, mostly bugging me and "helping" drive the truck, ATV, tractor etc and spray thistles. they are actually quite good fun and make boring and tedious jobs a little better. Most of the trainees has New Year off (Eve - Jan 2nd are public holidays!) so were heading to Nelson in the north or Wanaka in the middle to celebrate. Melinda and I both had to work (so did Anna but we didnt know that!) so we thought we would meet up and celebrate together. So we had a BBQ of steaks and chicken kebabs at her house, watched The History Boys on DVD then headed into Ashburton for the street party. they didnt have a liquor ban this year, but did ban glass in the town centre. it was pretty good really - the band was ace and for once they got the sound balance right so you could hear more than just bad bass. there was a lot of old people dancing badly but we did meet up with Frank from church. We did the countdown (quite exciting being the first country in the world to see the new year), danced, cheered, got hugged by a bunch of semi-drunk 50-somethings and drank lots.....of coke! i had to milk at 4 am so headed home pretty soon after that. overall a fairly tame new year but fun all the same. there are too many stories from the rest of the guys to retell, suffice to say they had a good time and suffered at work when they returned home!

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