It’s late December in Queenstown, christmas promotions and kitchy songs everywhere and people go shopping like it was their last day on earth (well, actually it’s just only ONE public holiday on the 25th when all shops are closed). So far that sounds familar to us – if there wasn’t the ‘summer’ aspect at all. It really feels weird and it’s almost impossible to get into a real christmas mood here in NZ when the sun is shining at 30°C. So we grabbed some red Santa Claus hats and went ‘downtown’ the little tourist mile. The streets were full of artists presenting their skills, but there was nothing more inviting than having a Turkish kebap for lunch.
Since we could not find ANY place to buy a christmas tree for the last 1500 km, we had to cut one from the forest with our kitchen knife. There were hundreds of nice little trees so we assumed one tree wouldn’t be missing at all. (If you’re the land owner of this piece of wood – for details see photos below – please feel free to send us a tax invoice for the tree.)
Here it is, our wonderful strong and perfectly straight tree in a flower vase in front of the kitchy fake fireplace in our motel living room:
Christmas dinner 2012: Emsi’s experimental cooking with limited motel kitchen utensils
Roasted New Zealand lamb leg on vegetables with a Sauvignon Blanc from our ‘home’ town Motueka:
Usually New Zealand’s Santa Claus leaves the presents during night and children can find them on the next morning in socks. However, it seems that our Santa got some influence by the Austrian Christkind this year. After the kids went to bed, just a few minutes later their presents just appeared below the tree and the kids ran down the staircase in a hurry to see their unexpected early surprises:
