New Traditions - Part II : Christmas and New Years

Several New Zealand Christmases ago, James and I camped out on a beach on Christmas Eve. It was just on a whim at the time, but it proved to be a simple way to build in a little time alone as a new, young family of our own starting a tradition or two. It's become subtly important to me - squeezing in a bit of my own agency before heading off for the NZ family gatherings. 

This year, with our two Alaskan friends, we headed down to the Catlins on Christmas Eve.  The Southerly blowing in from Antarctica with gale force winds and hail mandated one small adjustment: We stayed in a friend's 'crib' instead of tents.  This crib is a favorite spot for James and I. It's an old house from the area's logging and railroad days. Today it's in the middle of nowhere, along some unnamed gravel roads. And it's quirky. Very quirky.

New Traditions

I think migrants engage in a conscious process of deciding which old traditions to purposefully carry on, which to abandon (willingly or reluctantly) and which host country traditions to adopt.

And sometimes, you just make up something new.

 

This holiday season has been a conglomeration of all these strategies.

So this entry backtracks to Thanksgiving. Actually, for a moment, I’ll jump back to Thanksgiving 2006 when several of our American friends and family were gathered in NZ for our upcoming wedding.  With no means to create a proper Thanksgiving dinner, all the American guests ordered Indian take-out, sat around a picnic table, and toasted this unorthodox celebration. 

This is a precious memory to me and to all, so I’ve heard, who were there.

But I’ve also wanted to integrate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner into my NZ life. It’s my favorite holiday and as America’s newest citizen, James has embraced Thanksgiving like nobody’s business as well.  But we’ve never pulled it off here in NZ and this year I began to get awfully discouraged – some traditions just aren’t transferable, even with considerable, conscious effort. 

This year, I planned to go all out - 3 Americans would be visiting! But late November is early summer here. A really busy time for everyone. Our 3 friends were travelling around NZ, James was climbing Mt. Cook and I was home alone.  Locally, it’s an ordinary work day – Thursday is not a day for cooking and gathering and “Black Friday” is not a day for recovering and shopping.  And even if I had remembered to collect my family’s recipes, I realized half the ingredients aren’t available here. (Cheese Whiz! What’s Thanksgiving without Cheese Whiz!?!  If you aren’t with me on that one, how about cranberry sauce? Pumpkin pie? Turkey? Getting the picture?) 

James with his favorite Thanksgiving dish.

The 3 (or 4) Month Lull

This always happens when I’ve been in NZ for about 3 months.  This time, I’ve been here 4 months before getting this feeling.  Maybe that’s slow progress?

After 3 months, or 4 as the case may be, the novelty wears off.  After 3 months, I start looking up airfare.  After 3 months, I really miss my mom.  After 3 months, I realize my body has been a little bit tensed up all this time and I’m a bit tired. After 3 months, I want to just “be” – on a daily basis – without “trying”.  After 3 months, I want to go home.

Embracing Summer Christmas

Summer Christmas.

As unnatural as the juxtaposition of those words might be, I’m trying to embrace this crazy reality.  I have slowly stopped saying, “It’s just WRONG.  Christmas in summer is WRONG.”  I have oppressed this sentiment and replaced it with the expression, “Christmas in summer is, well, different.”  Progress, even if I am gritting my teeth while saying it.

Gift tags from the New Zealand post.

My mission to embrace summer Christmas has involved looking for summer-Christmas paraphernalia – like cards and wrapping paper.  Ideally, I hoped to find these things not just in generic form, but specific to New Zealand.  I had to search in several stores before finding a few selections of stationary depicting kiwis (the birds) wearing Santa hats and red jandals (flip flops). Ah yes, a bit of Kiwiana mixed into my Christmas. That’s what I was after.  But really, they were all pretty ugly cards. I wasn’t sold. The choices are so limited that I have begun to think New Zealand itself is perhaps working on embracing summer-Christmas. Ask the locals and they associate Christmas with barbeques, beer, beaches and jandals.  But go by the decorations, cards and gift wrap, which are all covered in snowmen, snowflakes, dark wintery scenes with twinkling lights, and I think that perhaps, just perhaps, even Kiwis know that Christmas in summer is just WRONG.

I mean different.

And, while looking for said stationary and gift wrap, the stores weren’t even playing Christmas music.

That’s different too.

The cards I finally settled on.  Depictions of Kiwiana Christmas!

Let the Pictures Do the Talking

My last few posts haven't involved any photographs.  And who doesn't love photos?  I do. So this entry uses several recent photos to depict a bit of my life here in New Zealand. Some of the pictures I took deliberately with this project in mind.  For others, I realized after taking them, that they say a lot...

So here it goes.

I get to enjoy this view, from the Staff Club at the U of Otago, several times a week.  It's a quintessential Dunedin, NZ view. The oldest buildings on "campus" (a word that I rarely hear NZ'ers use but am seemingly unable to delete from my vocabulary!) are local icons, the green hills are good representatives of the landscape and the "tussocks" (the plants on the deck) are common both in the wild hills and in urban landscaping. Sun makes sitting outside the club particularly enticing and I realized it is one of my favorite spots in all of Dunedin.

"Hello, Molly!"

I moved to Alaska in summer, 2001. I left when winter rolled around, unsure if I’d ever go back, but before I knew it I was working on an assembly line in a paper factory in rural Missouri saving up the money to return. From then on, it slowly but surely, wonderfully, became the place I call home. To steal the descriptive phrase an immigrant used to describe her homeland to me, returning to Alaska after a short vacation or a year in New Zealand, soon felt like “entering a warm bath.” Ahhhhhhhh.

But of course, though I loved it there right away, it took a little time to feel that good. I remember thinking, in the early days, that when I had a particular experience, I could officially be considered, and consider myself, an Alaskan local. What was that experience? Seeing someone I knew while waiting for a flight to Juneau in the Seattle airport.

One airline flies into Juneau – Alaska Airlines. Note: after landing at the Juneau Airport, the flight attendants do not say, “We know you have a choice when considering airlines and we thank you for choosing Alaska Air.” No, they don’t say that. Or if they do, the entire plane snickers. There is no choice, and believe me, the cost of flying into Juneau will make you believe in capitalist competition.

In addition, if you want to fly into Juneau, you will not only be on Alaska Airlines, but, with the exception of a few options that go through Anchorage, you will be routed through Seattle. For this reason, after spending the majority of the last 10 years in Juneau, I have joined the ranks of locals who view the Seattle Airport as an extension of our town. I know which restaurant will give me an extra taco for only $2.50. I know which hot chocolate is the best. And, after months of shopping only at Juneau’s Fred Meyer for everything I could possibly need, I get freaking excited about the Seattle Airport’s shopping opportunities. I choose itineraries with long lay-overs so I can get lost in Borders, check out the clearance rack at Ex Officio and be simultaneously disgusted and intrigued with the expanding variations of Crocs.