Another Day in New Zealand: Cole's Christmas

Time to update you on my Kiwi Christmas. I've commented quite a bit about how it didn't really feel like Christmas because of the weather, the being away from home, etc. Well, thanks to a little Santa Parade, skype, and generally nice people, it ended up being a pretty great Christmas after all.

Christmas Eve was a full work day here, but it was capped off by a Santa Parade down in Riverton. It was a typical smalltown parade with a few twists. Here are the things that stood out:

they had a bagpiping marching band ( I missed the bagpipers themselves, but caught the drummers at the end)

There was a random Nelson Mandela tribute.

And a dogsledding team????

Mermaids

Giraffe

Bug Car

ABBA tribute people...

Snowmen! That's a little more normal, but it's 'summer' here, so snowmen don't make sense here.

Coastguard representin.

The accordion guys in the back of this giant truck were possibly my favorite float.

The Star of the Parade.

Liquid Gold (Milk) tanker. There were a lot of trucks and tractors in the parade. These guys are all over the roads here. On the back of them, they say 'I turn often', but it's not often enough for me. I feel like I'm always stuck behind one, being taunted that they promise to turn, but never do...

I went and visited Anita from our office after the parade, then popped over to the beach, and caught a little Christmas Eve beach view.

And saw this house on my way home. The one and only house I saw that had Christmas lights up. They really went for it, at least.

On to Christmas Day. I was on call, but wasn't busy hardly at all. I did go over to a patient's house for Christmas lunch. It was nice. He is an very kind Maori man in town, and his family is really great. We had a great lunch, then I headed home to skype in to Bruch family Christmas Eve, so I didn't feel too left out of the events back home. That evening, I hung out with my neighbors and a couple from down the street. I turned in early so I could get up at 5AM to skype with the family for their Christmas Day festivities. At 4:15, my pager went off, and I had to head out to the next town over to respond to a medical incident. I got that all tidied up and made it home in time to participate in all the Christmas fun back home!

The Whitings got back that evening, and we had a little gift exchange. Among the things exchangd was this:

It's a crumple map of sydney for my trip (leaving the next morning!)

Not only is the map water-proof, and tear-proof, it doubles as traveler-chic headware.

So I was overall pretty happy with how Christmas turned out. I was thinking it would be kinda sad, but it was actually really great. And when I met Annette in Australia, it got even better with presents::::