Pohutukawa Christmas

Well, the "Eat, Knit, Love" blog has been on something of a holiday recently, so what better time than the holidays to pop back up again?! After all, it is traditionally a time of love, festive food and you can be sure I have squeezed in some knitting too!

It's the long summer holiday here and although this is my 10th Christmas in Aotearoa, I still haven't got used to the idea of the festive season being in the middle of a heat wave instead of a cold snap. However, I am doing my best to adapt, and we have developed several new traditions, such as having a homemade pavlova for Christmas breakfast, with the leftovers for pudding after Christmas dinner! Some years I do more Christmas baking than others, last year it was Stollen and this year it has been butter shortbread Christmas trees.

We are away from home for Christmas, house-sitting in Golden Bay, parts of which were ravaged by heavy flooding last week. However, the bit we are in is as beautiful as ever and it has been a gorgeous sunny day here in the Bay. While I was in Takaka on Christmas Eve I took a photo of a beautiful pohutukawa tree, resplendent in its red blooms. The pohutukawa is affectionately known as New Zealand's Christmas tree. After my little trip to Takaka, negotiating the Birds hill washout where the road disappeared down the hillside in the floods (now thankfully repaired with a single lane and traffic lights), I got back to our temporary home, and there was my bundle of Corriedale spinning fibre in the "pohukawa" colour way, from "Heavenly Wools". Photo above. . . Somehow I managed to find room to pack my Little Grace spinning wheel to bring to Golden Bay and I have been spinning every day so far.

Anyway, I wish you all a happy festive season, wherever you may be and whatever you are celebrating. . . May 2012 be a year full of happiness and good health for you and your loved ones. Special thoughts go out to all in Christchurch and Canterbury, as another swarm of earthquakes struck just before Christmas, with several between magnitude 5.0 and 6.0. Not sure how much more the people down there can be expected to endure :( Poor old CHCH. Here's hoping that 2012 sees the earthquakes starting to diminish in intensity. . .

PS I solemnly promise to get back to blogging regularly in the new year :)