A very Kiwi Christmas

We were blessed this year with a classic Hawke's Bay Kiwi Christmas. The weather was not too hot, not too cold, not too windy and just the right amount of sun for a day at the beach. 

Christmas Eve dinner on the deck

Richie enjoying his first Christmas cookie

Christmas lunch at the beach with the obligatory party hats (part of the imported UK Christmas cracker tradition)

Richie and Paul hit the beach after lunch

Did I mention how gorgeous the water was?

Me and my little man. Doesn't he look like a mini J Crew ad here? Totally by accident

It's our 5th Christmas here, and as we polished off our eggnog pie on the deck overlooking the sea at the end of the day and heard cheesy pop songs wafting over from the neighbor's patio, we finally got it. Kiwi's treat Christmas like Americans treat Fourth of July but add the presents. They go to the beach, have a bbq, set off fireworks or noisemakers and get silly drunk by the end of the day with friends.

We're not complaining, it just finally made sense. But we combined some of our family traditions (Swedish meatballs, eggnog pie, Christmas cookies, etc) with our favorite Kiwi ones and had a grand old time. Hope you all had a great holiday too!

Happy Father's Day 2.0

Yes, Paul gets TWO Father's Days since it falls on a different day here in NZ (Sept 5) than in the US. We're still debating how we'll sort this out in the future. I say we should only celebrate the NZ one since it'd be too hard for Richie to know about the one in June, but Paul says since he celebrates that day with his Dad, he wants to celebrate it with Richie too. So the bugger somehow gets away with 2 Father's Days while Mommy here is robbed with just one. Oh well, it was a good excuse to have a good meal and go to the park.

I love this pic of Paul and Richie checking out the spring blooms at the Botanical Garden.

Later we went to a friends' place for dinner with their two adorable little boys. They asked if Richie could join them in the bath, and well the results speak for themselves. Cuteness 3.0!