Thanksgiving doesn’t exist in New Zealand.  We briefly considered mounting our own celebration, but this pregnancy plus the very warm weather makes the thought of cooking a turkey, making homemade stuffing, and baking a pumpkin pie from scratch sound pretty miserable to me.  Besides, “Thanksgiving” in New Zealand would still technically be Wednesday in the States, and that just seems weird.  And Black Friday?  What’s that?

I’m amazed at how much less of an emphasis there seems to be on Christmas over here.  Sure, there are window displays, a giant 2 story Santa on the Whitcoull’s Building, and a Christmas tree on the Sky Tower, but it seems less obvious here than in the States.  I can guarantee you that there’s no one camping outside of a store for a week in order to get an early jump on the sales.  Such a person would probably be arrested and taken away to the mental home for further evaluation.

Chris asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year.  Of course, it’s not just Christmas – my birthday and our 6th wedding anniversary also occur during the same 8 day period.  I was stumped.  I hadn’t even thought about gifts, and it took me several days to come up with a suggestion or two.  After all, what more could I wish for?  We’re expecting our first baby, my sister is coming to visit in less than 4 weeks, we’re healthy, and we’re happy.  It’s a nice thing to feel that you already have everything that you want 🙂