Sure enough when we came through in the morning to the lounge there would be presents under the tree, the milk would have been drunk, the cookies only crumbs, and the carrots nibbled.

When we were younger our santa stockings/sacks were left at the end of the bed, as we got older they were left outside our doors, and in most recent years in the lounge by the tree.

We still, or at least a couple of years ago, we still did Christmas stockings, Mum and Dad had to get one each a few years ago too, when the shared one i had for them started to get too full!

Christmas day was always busy, we’d have Lunch with one side of the family, big meal, presents the works, and then Dinner with the other side of the family, so that by the end of the day we were extremely full.
This often meant driving across Auckland on Christmas day, from the north shore, to south auckland to west auckland, e.t.c.

I still love christmas and all its magic, decorating the house, putting up the tree, wrapping presents, listening to songs, singing along …………

There are some christmas lights on houses here in Swansea, but only every so often, some of them are quite cheap to buy. The Cities Christmas lights are really lovely, most UK towns seem to put a bit of effort into putting up Christmas trees and lights around the town areas.

Russ, I’m sure Calvin could leave some Soy Milk out for Santa. I think Santa would love that. That gets over the problem of drinking and driving. How about a carrot for his reindeer. Just scrape a fork down the carrot for Calvin to see on Xmas morning and I’m sure he would be convinced the reindeer had tried to eat it.

If we left beer out for santa doesn’t that mean he would be drinking and driving?

As a young child, we spent the day at my Gradprents’ house in Orewa. I don’t any vivid memories of tihs, but I have seen enough photos to have a picture in my mind. One particularly memorable Christmas we spent Christmas eve in our caravan parked outside my Grandparents’ house. I wasn’t quite sure how Santa was meant to deliver the presents as there wasn’t a Chimney. I think my parents kindly agreed to leave the door unlocked for him.

Actually I don’t really remember the time that I really believed in Santa, but I loved to play along with it, writing letters to Santa and humouring my parents.

However my best memories of Christmas are the fun I had playing with my cousins.

As I got a bit older we started spending Christmas at our house and the houses of my two Aunties - each of the sisters had a turn about. I had great fun with my cousins putting on a Christmas concert for all our parents. Some years we spent the whole day rehearsing. I remember my Mum had a 45 record of Snoopy’s Christmas, which I loved. I’d dance around to it in the lounge with a little bell, ringing it during the Chorus. I think this was possible the first ever Christmas item we did, starting the tradition for years to come.

As we got older we got a bit too ‘cool’ for that kind of thing, but I tried my hardest to force the Christmas spirit on the rest of my family long after all my cousins were uninterested - for instance I made up books of Christmas carols and forced everyone into a sing along. I also made up customised Christmas tags on the computer, drawing little Christmas pictures in ‘Deluxe Paint’. This must be when my interest in graphic design began! I took charge in our house of putting up the Christmas tree, and made decorations for it. I loved listening to Christmas carols.

As my cousins became adults, I gave up this kind of thing up to some extent - though I did still do things like making a CD of Christmas songs to play during the day. Christmas then got a little boring - as young adults we were more wrapped up in our own lives. Christmas became almost a chore of sitting around talking the whole day. Even gift giving (and receiving) became tiresome as it got so difficult to buy things that people liked. Someone then had the idea that instead of buying a present for everyone, we would do a draw, and each person would buy a gift for one other person worth $50. This has been going for quite a few years now, and works quite well. We also tried various things to put a bit of interest back in Christmas - one year we had a picnic lunch at Muriwai beach. We always talked about going out to a restaurant to save the enourmous task of providing Christmas dinner, but from memory I don’t think we ever got round to that.

As my cousins started to have children, Christmas started getting a bit more interesting - having children around does make Christmas more meaningful. Now that I have a child too, it’ll be really exciting to be starting a whole new era of Christmas traditions.