Some early Christmas pressies!

My girls have a day and a half left of school this year!

The kiwi academic year is a long slog to Christmas. The school year in the UK is split fairly equally between Christmas and the summer holidays, plus Easter and half terms thrown in as well. The new Zealand school year is split into 4 terms. So it runs from the end of January to Easter and then Easter to the mid winter break. There is then another break around October and then it's the long run until Christmas.

With Christmas and the summer holidays occurring at the same time it feels like you wait all year for the celebrations to begin. Although we have a similar holiday structure to the UK, without the mid winter Christmas cheer, you don't feel like you have had a real break from the day to day drudgery.

With the holidays so close now we have indulged ourselves and bought some early Christmas presents!



Kayaks are awesome! We are so lucky to live near a large inlet so although we are on the sea it's nice and safe even in the choppy water we found ourselves on today. The girls were able to manoeuvre these little kayaks easily and the water was surprisingly warm so when they did jump in it wasn't too shocking.

I can't wait until the real summer weather hopefully arrives in the next few weeks!

Seasonal Pukana

Pukana = (verb) to stare wildly, dilate the eyes - done by both genders when performing haka and waiata to emphasise particular words.  

Kapa Haka = (noun) concert party, haka group, Māori cultural group, Māori performing group.                                                                   

Nativities and traditional Christmas plays don't seem to be the done thing over here, unless you attend a religious school. As we are committed atheist/jedi/wika/agnostic (depending on what side of the bed I get out of) our kids attend the local non committed primary.

It has been a bit of a revelation to see what local schools get up to a Christmas and this year ours decided to produce an end of term Pukana Kapa Haka. This involved the whole school performing in the evening on the playing field. The lucky parents had picnics and strawberries and cream whilst cheering them on. It was rather awesome and the kids were so enthusiastic you could hear their voices echo off the surrounding hills.

My girls could sing all of the songs in Maori and have even got the hang of using the poi (the ball on the end of a string which is swung about rhythmically during the dance). Unfortunately they don't know the meaning of everything they sing but I'm impressed that they have learnt the words in such a relatively short period of time.

So my two girls born in the middle of the traditional English counties of Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire are now performing Haka's at Christmas on the other side of the world. Rather cool really :)

Warming up to Christmas

This will be our sixth Christmas in New Zealand and still the lead up to the festive season feels a bit odd. Christmas cards in shops still have snow scenes on them and robins and snowmen still feature heavily in the decorations. However my kids are now in shorts on a daily basis and I have had to dig out my posh sandals for work and discard my winter tights. It all still feels decidedly unseasonal.

I am feeling a bit more festive since this afternoon as we decided to put up the outside lights. This is fun as you obviously get to use the outdoors far more than you ever would in the UK at Christmas time. Trouble is you have to stay up fairly late to get to appreciate the lights as it takes so long to get dark!

I am particularly pleased with these cheery little guys!

And since we live in a wood we had to include the trees in the Christmas spirit.

I do love Kiwi summers and as ours gradually approaches everything in the garden is beginning to bloom. I am willing to put up with feeling a little bit odd about a warm Christmas when everything is so vibrantly coming to life at this time of year.