New Zealand X-mas
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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook.

If you're used to a cold, snowy christmas then celebrating the holiday in New Zealand can require a change in attitude. Canadian transplant, Allan Coukell reports from Auckland.

For me, the holiday with snow and ice, short days and silent nights, whatever it's religious meaning, Christmas was stuck to the weather like pills of ice to a woolen mitten. It must have been the same for the first English settlers, transplanting their fireside holiday into the summer soil of New Zealand, but if the old traditions, the mince pies and christmas carols survive, they're mixed now with barbecues, champagne and games of cricket on the beach. Winter here is miserable. In July and August rain beats this city like a drum. The cold penetrates the bones of houses. Breath and mold hang in clouds above the bed and maybe it's not surprising that a few people choose July 25th each year to throw a party. They turn their backs on the weather and call it mid-winter Christmas. Some of them even exchange gifts and decorate a tree. Only after the longest day of the year can we count on the weather. It's now that a rash of crimson sweeps the cliff tops and boulevards, the mighty New Zealand Christmas Tree is in bloom. The surf beckons and summer has arrived at last. I don't know about the future of Christmas in New Zealand, but on a bright holiday morning in December when I throw open the windows and doors to the gentle air and wander barefoot into the garden, the whole day feels light, as if it might just rise up and float away.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory and is supported by the National Science Foundation.