These first 2 pics feature Santa (and visitors) at Kirkcaldie & Stains, Wellington's premiere department store, prior to Christmas.
(Click on photos to enlarge).

On the afternoon of Saturday, December 22nd we crossed Cook Strait on the interisland ferry, Aratere, and drove south to Christchurch for a two-week break. The 83 km (52 mile) ferry crossing from Wellington to Picton is a standard three hours, and the 336 kms (208 miles) to Christchurch took four and a quarter hours with the main highway being rather "quiet" that evening - as South Island roads often are.

We spent the first few days with my parents ("Nana and Pa") including most of Christmas Day. The remainder of the time, Karen's sister Jenny and her family were blessed with our presence. Although it was summertime and we enjoyed a number of barbecues, we still experienced a "white Christmas", albeit a couple of days late. We were driving to Waikuku, a beach settlement, when we got caught in an unexpected but rather heavy hailstorm. The shot below right features the short-lived white coating covering the countryside.

Mini-golf, swims at the pool and beach, a little tennis, balmy evenings, eating out, going for walks, etc - we enjoyed them all. The carefree days of summer!

We got to the beach on three separate occasions. The first instance was when we encountered the hailstorm en route to Waikuku Beach. Although the weather had more-or-less cleared by the time we arrived, it wasn't exactly a day for swimming. The next occasion was New Year's Day which was reasonably pleasant weather-wise at Spencer Park. The kids went for a swim but it wasn't a hot enough day for me to be tempted! Our third excursion saw us "over the hill" at Taylors Mistake on a 31 degree day (88 fahrenheit) - that was real beach weather and the middle pic below confirms it. I did get wet on that occasion!

Holidays are a time for relaxing and playing on the cousins' new Play Station 2. And they're a time to picnic at the Gardens with grandparents and watch the punts and canoes on the river. Although we discussed it more than once, we didn't get to go rowing ourselves. Nor did we get to go ballooning, but we did see a hot air balloon (or 3) in the skies above us a couple of times. On our last morning in Christchurch 3 balloons drifted lazily overhead in the still morning air. As I lay awake about 6.30am the familiar "whoosh" of a balloon's burner was the noise that gave them away (so to speak). I grabbed my camera .....

Holidays are also a good time to catch up with "old" friends and we did just that. We returned home to Wellington on Saturday, January 5th, 2002.