In these days of almost instant everything, including contact with people half a world away, it's easy to forget that a wee pond called the Pacfic Ocean separates New Zealand & the USA by 9600km (6000 miles).
Two Western countries, culturally very similar & alike in many ways - but so very different in others. Not least of all the fact that we are seasonal opposites.
Never are the seasonal differences more obvious than at Christmas time. The early settlers to New Zealand brought all of their European traditions with them but over the years they adapted & evolved. I guess the lack of snow in Summer may have forced that issue somewhat ;)
For this months artistic growth challenge Mallory Hoffman (Rosebud101) & I have decided to compile photo journals of those Christmas contrasts.
I've never experienced a white Christmas although I grew up knowing of them as that was the stuff of my Mum's childhood. I well remember the very traditional English Christmas dinners - roast turkey, roast ham, roast potatoes, green beans, corn, carrots, stuffing, cranberry sauce & gravy - Christmas pudding, fruit mince pies, trifle, brandy sauce, cream & ice cream. Everyone used to fall alseep mid afternoon after that lot....well, the adults did & the kids had FUN!
Then somehow new potatoes & kumara (sweet potatoes) snuck in, someone decided they didn't like turkey that much & it got replaced with chicken, the hams became cold hams..how about a salad with that, it's too hot for all those roast veges. Before you knew it fresh fruit salad & Pavlova started replacing the trifle & then; "Oh the heck with it lets have a BBQ & make things easy". You get the picture...
Of course food isn't the only difference - but you'll have to wait until the reveal on the 27th December, 2010 to see the rest of the differences between the way Christchurch New Zealand & Minnesota, USA ( a mere 13,221km or 8216 miles apart) celebrate the holiday season.
Lets see what Mallory has to say about this challenge by visiting her blog!
Ok - I lied, here's another sneak peek.....
This is going to be fun, Deb! I can hardly wait!
ReplyDeleteI forget it's summer there. I remember when I once lived in Georgia - where the talented Marcy Lamberson lives I once waxed a car on Christmas Day...looks like you are experiencing the same. I'm not quite as snowy as our bud Mallory but we catch that "Great Lakes Affect" snowfall as it comes across from Minnesota. And BBQ sounds so much better than turkey!
ReplyDeleteha ha i was just catching up with some blogs and saw this one about Christmas, I'm from the UK and it always facinates me how Australia and New Zealand celebrate this time of year, as you lucky people are in the dephs of summer now, we're all freezing cold and expecting snow any time now. Looking forward to future posts about this now.
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