Merry Christmas from Down Under!!!

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Hey Everyone!!!!
I've attached the facebook album of my christmas pictures but I've also made a slideshow of the pictures and posted it on here so CHECK IT OUT!!!!

Pictures

I hope that you ALL had a very Merry Christmas. Mine was definitely different then any other christmas I've ever had. In the days leading up to Christmas I was mostly working. On Tuesday (the 22nd) I had a terrible day at work. It was insanely busy and I had all kinds of people coming at me all at once. A family who booked a lot of rooms had made an error in their booking and took it out on me. Yelled at me and everything. Luckily I managed to find enough room for all them that night. My cash up was so crazy too. So needless to say that right after work I had a big glass of wine!!!

The next day Michelle and I had the day off together and one of the returning guests (Becks) had a van and the three of us drove out to Taylor's Mistake beach which is about 15 minute drive out of Christchurch. It's beautiful there!!! It was hot and perfectly sunny so we made the best of it. The sand there is a bit darker so I'm pretty sure that I burnt my toes haha.

After an ice cream Becks drove us over to Riccarton Mall as there was 7 of us staff who went to see Avatar in 3D. SUCH AN AMAZING MOVIE!!!! If you get the chance, go see it in theatres and in 3D. It was really awesome!!! We all got some pretty sweet 3D glasses that are super hot haha.

The next day was Christmas eve here. Michelle and I got Tom (my manager) a christmas gift. Since he has no hair we got him a bright orange wig which he loved and a nice black cowboy hat so he can be protected from the sun while he mows the lawn haha. Clare and Joe got him a huge container of hair gel as a joke haha. Andy and Gerti (the owners of the hostel) put on a bbq for all the staff and guests. We got free food and free booze. It was a fun time.

Christmas day was another hot day. I made everyone Canadian pancakes for breakfast as most of the girls have never had pancakes and the english only seem to eat crepes. I think everyone liked them haha. I loved them. But I had to do with fake maple syrup. Oh well. After everyone was done cleaning we did a secret santa with all of us so we had a present to open. I got some Manuka honey hand creme ( it smells awesome!!) Manuka is a special NZ honey. I also got a present from Clare. She gave me a reindeer that poops out jelly beans 😊 mmmm

Andy and Gerti gave all of us a little something as well. A little bottle of wine, some chocolates and a couple of scratch tickets. Sadly I didn't win any money on them. Boo.

Joe, Clare, michelle and I had an english fry up after that for lunch. So much food! Ahh. For dinner Clare cooked us steak's and we made sweet potatoes and chips, peas, carrots, coleslaw, and mushrooms. Everything was soo good. Not quite turkey but it was good.

Didn't do too much on boxing day. We had a jell-o eating contest in which we had to eat a big bowl of jell-o the fastest using huge utensils. It was fun but I didn't win haha. After that we played a bit of twister which was a good time. Always a good laugh but that game is hard!

We all decided to go out that night after Michelle finished work and we invited a couple of the guests to come with us. 3 english guys. We had a really good time. Me and one of the english guys named Rob kind of hit it off which was nice haha. We watched a really good band play at one of the bars we went to. It was a really good night.

I worked on Sunday (27th) which was a bit of a crazy one as we had a ton of check outs and a lot of check ins. But I made it through the day and then we all had dinner together as Laura (finnish girl) was leaving today. Clare made us the best scalloped potatoes ever. Sooooo good. We had pavlova for dessert and Laura gave us a speech in finnish which I will post.

All in all it was a great Christmas in New Zealand. I definitely missed having my family around. Kiwi's don't really put much up for christmas lights as it doesn't get dark until about 10pm here as it's summer. They do put trees up and play christmas music but not the ones that sing about white christmas' haha.

I hope that you all had a great christmas and got to celebrate with some loved ones!!! I miss you all!!!!!

Love,

Laurene

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Comments

[Mom]

Good looking pancakes
They look better than mine, those pancakes do. We enjoyed your Christmas pics. What a group you all are!!! What's with all the tougues. Your beach pics are gorgeous. I do wish we were there. Keep enjoying your NZ adventure.