24&25|12|18, Christmas in summer?

I wish you all a merry Christmas from New Zealand! 🎄

So, the time had come for us to spend our first summer Christmas on the South Island.

Yesterday morning, on December 24th, we went to work.

However, there wasn't any actual work to be done, just a general cleanup of the premises and a BBQ afterwards.

After that, we started celebrating our Christmas. First, we drove to the "Grand Mercure Monaco" hotel, which would be our accommodation for Christmas Eve. After getting our room, we enjoyed the privacy. Our own bed, our own bathroom, and everything that came with our room, which was more luxurious than we had originally planned.

A suite with a huge bed that could almost be described as an entire apartment. After weeks of "survival packs" in free parking lots, it was simply a dream.

In the evening, we went to a really nice restaurant to have steak and drank a few beers, spending our first Christmas at 20 degrees.

Of course, I also talked to my family and Ann-Estelle in the evening. I must say that the Christmas season has been the most difficult time so far. I would have loved to spend the holiday at home, but we made the best of it and had a nice evening.

When we got up this morning from the cozy hotel bed, we went to the breakfast buffet. A buffet with everything and everything your heart desires. We were eating in a very civilized restaurant. But when we stood at the buffet for the fifth time in a short period and stuffed ourselves, the civilized behavior was over.

After checking out of the hotel, we went to the beach despite the pouring rain. We had to take advantage of the opportunity to go swimming in the sea on Christmas without freezing.

The promised video with Santa hats on the beach was filmed and will be gladly shared upon request.

Since we were both hungry again, we decided to go out to eat once more. After all, we miss out on a lot of good food at home and we have to compensate somehow.

But as we walked through the pedestrian zone, we noticed that the New Zealanders take the holiday quite seriously. Nothing was open. No restaurant, nothing!

However, we still had a trump card up our sleeve. McDonald's didn't let us down today either!

So, we enjoyed our Christmas meal at McDonald's and to be honest, it was kind of cool too!

We spent the rest of the day in our van and enjoyed our day off. Tomorrow, we'll go to work with a salary that's 2.5 times higher. It's worth getting up for a holiday salary!

Greetings from Nelson, New Zealand! 🇳🇿

Your Tim! 😊