🎄 Merry Christmas!

From the antipodes

Dec 24, 2023

Kia mau ki te tokanga nui a noho. (There is no place like home.) — Māori proverb

This is the second year in my 30-something laps around the Sun that I celebrate Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere. That means it is Summer now, I can’t wear Christmas jumpers and I am eating strawberries.

Every year I design and send a Christmas card I send to my family and closest friends. The theme is constant: a Christmas tree. The media varies depending on the materials and tools I am exploring artistically that year. This link is to the one I sent last year, and these are some designs from previous years:

2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 Christmas Cards (shown in that order)

This year, being in New Zealand, I thought about illustrating the character of the place and the season I am living in on the card. Somehow exotic. My partner and I noticed these perfect-looking Christmas trees that are quite abundant here in Auckland and on the North Island. I think they are Norfolk pines although not as exotic as we thought at the beginning: I saw one in the north of Spain back in June!

In any case, the photograph paints the picture and shows the intention: a wild black sand beach in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a Christmas tree like. I took this photo on our trip to Waiti, near Taranaki. I have been searching for the perfect image of a black-sand beach and tree pair since my partner suggested the idea of a photograph this year.

I always look forward to this time of the year to design the Christmas card. It’s such a giving little project. I love the process of designing it but also the process of hand-writing and signing them, and sending them to our loved ones. I am always so happy to receive those loving messages from friends and family that the card has arrived.

I learned, however, that the New Zealand Christmas tree - the so-called one - is the beautiful Pohutukawa when it flowers in late November and December. The landscape is full of these evergreen trees and these gorgeous red flowers, that paint a very festive scene. Pity I couldn’t capture it this year for this batch - the cards wouldn’t have made it on time. Below are some photos, though, I captured during recent walks. I thought: ‘Perhaps for the Christmas card next year!’. But it seems that this will be our first and last Christmas in Aotearoa New Zealand…

There is no place like home.