After spending nearly all of my previous Christmases in a cold climate, it felt very odd wearing shorts and a tshirt on Christmas eve and day this year! Having sadi that, I am not complaining about the gorgous sunshine or the fact that we were able to spend the day outside.

Our Christmas officially kicked off with the Nelson commuinity Christmas Carols, outside the Cathedral. So many people turned out for the event. They had closed the street and people were sat on blankets and chairs, or standing. There was a choir and band, as well as the Reverand and members of the local council. Plus volunteers were selling song sheets and candles with proceeds going to charity.

Unfortunately, we think Dave got duped into buying the 2011 songsheets, with a slightly different order of hymns- hope the money still went to a good cause!!

It was a little windy so our candles kept blowing out, but the sentiment was so cute. Plus it looked really magical when it got darker for the area to be aglow with candlelight. It really helped us all get in the Christmas mood.

After the carols, the kids went home and we went to the pub for a couple of Christmassy drinks. I was a little sad to be missing our traditional Christmas Eve drinks with old school friends in Chiswick. We all go to the same pub every year and its a lovely way to catch up with everyone that I don’t see very often.

Our Christmas morning started early with the girls waking us up to open stockings. Father Christmas had done a fair amount of his Christmas shopping in New Zealand this year!!

After stockings in my Mum’s room, we had breakfast and got dressed ready to go for a Christmas day hike! Our plan was to walk to the treeline hut on Mount Arthur  and enjoy a Christmas lunch picnic there.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the hike was perfect with the trees providing plenty of shade on our climb up. It took us about an hour to reach the hut, but passed quickly with a number of games of ‘Who am I’.