Meri Kirihimete ki a koe me te whānau.
(Maori Christmas greeting meaning “Merry Christmas to you and your family”)
Just days before Christmas, the pohutukawa began flowering with their brilliant scarlet blooms, like decorations on a Christmas tree. Not for nothing is the pohutukawa known as the ‘New Zealand Christmas Tree’.
And here’s how my kids and their cousins celebrated Christmas in our backyard today. The traditional New Zealand Christmas!
I also celebrated my birthday the other day. Our friends’ daughter made a very apt gingerbread birthday cake.
It was a pretty impressive fortification. But we successfully besieged the gingerbread walls, despite the stalwart defence of the M&M garrison manning the ramparts. They could not withstand our onslaught of fork and knife battering rams, under which the walls crumbled (quite literally). The cake finally resembled a … er … ruined castle. Very tasty!
Maybe gingerbread could be used for wargames buildings. Smash it up as the game progresses, then eat afterwards!
DRESSING THE LINES 
Merry Christmas in the sun to you and your family
Merry Christmas Roly.
I assume that your Christmas Day was just as blinkin’ hot as ours was. A great day for it given the weather uncertainties leading up to it.
Salute
von Peter himself
Now that does all look very splendid and certainly knocks spots off the wet weather here in the UK! Wishing you all the very best this Christmas and for the New Year.
All the best Roly and Happy Birthday too!
I do like the Pohutukawa… will have to see if i can find space for one in the garden…