Silja: Christmas

We started the 24^th of December with a walk along the beach where we had spent the night(Nine Mile Beach) and then decided to pack up and drive a little further south.

At Fox River we found the perfect place to spend Christmas Eve. Niklas prepared a camp fire for us and I made potatoe salad to go with the sausages we grilled on sticks.

Crafty and creative Lisa could not wait to give out the presents she had made for everyone. Niklas was very pleased with the crochet lasso rope he got, Axel sleeps well with a miniture dream catcher, Lea keeps even warmer with a skarf and I am now the lucky owner of a selection of her best beads. The children got a little gift  from us before we revealed the real gifts to each other:

We had written letters to each other, saying what we appreciate about each other. The kids had also decorated their letters with pictures and ornaments.

We each read the 4 letters we had in our envelope out loud and when we were all done, it had started to get dark and the fire was burning out. We packed up and took a short walk over the historic bridge to a cave where we hoped to see glow worms – and we did!!! Those were really special Christmas lights on a very special Christmas!

On Christmas morning I made French toast, which equipped us for the long hike we undertook that day. We followed the Fox River, crossing it twice, to the Ballroom Overhang from where you can enter a rather deep limestone cave, with beautiful stalacnites and stalactites. Again, Lisa was a more eager caver than the others, who felt that it was creepy despite the headlamps we had brought for everyone. Lisa would then wait in the cave alone (!) until Axel had escorted the rest of us out, carrying Lea on his back.  When he returned, they went even deeper into the cave that had been discovered by a farmer in 1900 and has been visted by tourists ever since.  

It took us six hours to do the whole hike – our longest yet.

We drove on to Punakaiki, where we visited limestoneformations called Pancake Rocks and yet another cave, where we saw glowworms – again! When we passed a beach on the way to the cave our mobile phone suddenly had a signal, so we called our parents/grandparents to say or rather shout «Merry Christmas!» over the sound of the sea and  wahtever other sounds that are created when calling the other side of this planet.

I hope that also you have made your own special Christmas memory this year!