WAIPUKURAU, New Zealand — Down Under, Hanukah and Christmas are summer time party times at the beach or lake or up in the mountains or you can just stay home. A big calendar, picturing ‘Food and Culture in Israel’ was a gift from the Embassy of Israel this time last year.It shows that the Eve of Hanukah this month is Sunday Dec 22 and Christmas day is the following Wednesday. The small Jewish community of New Zealand — much smaller than that of San Diego — and the Embassy of Israel host Hanukah Parties for the public each year in Auckland and Wellington. I can’t make one this year but they are always fun.
If any readers are coming down under and would like to make contact, get in touch with Don Harrison, the editor, and he will make the connection and give you my phone number. I can introduce you to members of the Jewish community around the country or you can spend some time with my Family and Friends. If you are coming on a Cruse ship, I can meet you at Napier Port and drive you around. (As I did with the editor and his wife.)
Right now our community is celebrating Christmas, New Zealand style. My Presbyterian church of St Andrews Waipukurau in a town of 5000 people are an easy going lot who holds two carols by candlelight services on Christmas Eve Dec 24th. The first at about 6pm is for children and families and the 9pm service is for those young at heart and everyone else. Both services are always full houses as other churches in the district don’t do what we do.
We sing carols and songs at both services. “Silent Night” is a beautiful carol and we sing it in Maori and English. Find it on line if you have time. Songs like “Santa Baby” have been sung too. I recall a comical rendition of this by a couple who are now married.
The very Jewish story of Christmas is told in different ways each year so I have no idea what it will be this year but we always start with a blacked out church with everybody as they enter being given a candle in a plastic cup to catch the wax. The candle is lit during the first part of the service while singing the first carol or song. Sometimes we finish the second service with a song followed by lots of chatter and shaking of hands. The song that generates that response is Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” sung in Spanish and English. A great way to finish the evening.
On Christmas Day ,we have a Christmas service about 9 am. Then the church hosts A Christmas community lunch for those alone or in a strange town. The food is gifted and is a full-on Christmas lunch. With ham-on-the-bone, roast beef, leg of lamb and turkey with hot new potatoes and endless salads. Pudding is preceded by the New Zealand dish Pavlova and cream with strawberries and ice cream. There will be peaches and cream and other things too. So many tastes are covered. Grace is always said at the beginning. Last year’s lunch hosted 80 plus people. Another tradition is the organizers of the lunch get to take home the left overs, sometimes you get to take home something you normally don’t have.
This year, our Family Christmas is a little different. With one daughter Katrina in Melbourne, Australia, she and her ten-week-old daughter will have Christmas with her husband’s family and some Greek cousins. My eldest daughter Rachael is having Christmas with her in-laws on the shores of Lake Taupo in the central North Island of New Zealand. My brothers and sister are each doing there own thing on the day this year. I will be at the Church’s community lunch as a Host.
My eldest niece, daughter of my brother Ross and Claire, will be hosting a Gathering of the Clan on December 27, where we will be introduced to her fiance and his family for the first time. His family comes from Nelson, the sunshine city at the top of South Island. This gathering will be a gathering of all branches of our clan, something that does not happen very often. It will be good to see cousins and their children and grandchildren again. The clan gathering will be held at Waitomo, Dad’s family farm where Ross and his family live and where my sister, brothers, and I grew up.
Our normal family Christmas day goes something like this. Breakfast in our own homes then lunch with my brothers and sister’s families, and then gather at a cousin’s home nearby to meet as many of the clan as can make it. After Boxing Day, my brother Ross and brother-in-law sometimes take the boat and go to the beach for a week or so.
Businesses close a day or two day before Christmas and many big businesses and factories do not reopen until after New Year giving there staff 2 weeks or more of annual leave.
Christmas time followed by New Year’s Day and the parties that go with that give people time to think things over reviewing the last year and looking forward. There is much drinking and eating over barbecues. Swimming, boating, diving, flying, and fishing are activities that you get to do at this time of the year as often as you want. Cricket and Tennis are the big sports here with a Cricket Test 3 or 5 day match normally starting on Boxing Day against a visiting national team. I think it’s England this year. Our Tennis National Champs and the NZ Open start in Auckland the day after New Year’s. Ten days later they will be at the Australian Open, so we get to see lots of high-flying tennis players here for that.
The time to worry about the kilos you put on starts when the holiday season is over.
With that, I wish all readers A Happy Hanukah, A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year — which ever suits you.
Shalom and Kind regards to ya all.
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John McCormick is chairman of the Hawkes Bay Province Friends of Israel, based in Waipukurau.