Christmas parties in Masterton

M E R R Y    C H R I S T M A S     E V E R Y B O D Y !

The first Christmas as far away from our family.

Even if we felt a lack of our family, of the good meal and of the Christmas atmosphere, we enjoyed these three days in Masterton.

Our flatmate welcomed us in his family in Masterton, approximatively 100km from Wellington.

For Christmas Eve, the New-Zealander enjoy this night with their friends. Everybody celebrate Christmas with a drink and music. Later, they go in a bar and at midnight it is time to go to bed. For some people, the waking can be difficult on the 25th!

On the Christmas day, we was awake with a big and delicious brunch made by our flatmate's mother. We met all his brothers and sisters. Later, we went in his Grand-ma's house, to enjoy a buffet. Still delicious!

In the afternoon, we went to his father to prepare the "hāngi", a Maori tradaition.

Do you want to know what is it?

It is three different kind of meat (chiken, lamb and pork) and a lot of vegetables (Kumara, potatoes..). You put all of this in a basket. At the same time, you have to heat stones in the pit with a large fire. After that, you can placing baskets of food on top of the stones, and covering everything with earth for several hours before uncovering the hāngi.

At the end of the cook, we took the hāngi to eat it at his other Grabd-ma's house. It was delicious, vegetables are really soft. His father told us he cooked the hāngi just for us, because we had never eaten it before!

All his family was so kind with us. They gave us different food baskets. They told us it was to let us discover New-Zealand products.

So Amazing!

"If you read this articles, we would like to thank you a lot for all the thing you made for us during these few days where you welcomed us at home. Thank to you, we enjoyed a lot this Christmas far away from our family. I don't think it could have been better!"

To thank them, we prepared cheese plate, from our work.