Manuia le Kerisimasi

(Noah's Christmas Performance at end of page)

It's been busy around here, Mum came to visit, we visited old cousins met new cousins and bumped into long lost cousins in airports.

Grandma's visit was greatly anticipated by Talia and Noah. Talia was keen to make Grandma a welcome cake so she went to the supermarket to choose a cake mix to make that afternoon. Noah must have glue ear because he wanted to give Grandma a welcome kick! Thankfully when Grandma arrived he just gave her a big hug and kiss. They enjoyed time with their Grandma, she let them eat the welcome cake for breakfast and for snacks.

We had 8 days of continuous rain and this caused the water supply to become contaminated with human and animal fecal matter. So for 5 days we had to boil the tap water.

As usual for this time we've been Christmas shopping, there's not a lot on offer, a lot of imported Chinese junk ($2 shop stuff) and the odd shops have nice toys bought in from the US. I guess the island savvy people have ordered stuff on the internet to have shipped here in time for Christmas. We're shopping local this Christmas, it'll make for a different Christmas.

Earlier this week Talia and I was grocery shopping in Aveina Bros, a store where a lot of Samoan folk shop when this man comes up and starts chatting like "how are you? is this your daughter? how's you family?" then the conversation quickly turned to I haven't got food for my family and don't get paid till Friday. Hmmm I thought as I quickly glanced into my trolley full of imported grocery goods (NZ cheese, NZ juice etc). The guy smelled of tobacco smoke so my main concern was that I wasn't going to give him money for cigarettes. So, I told him to go get some rice and I would buy that for him. And that's what happened, he chose the biggest bag (more like a sack) of rice and went on his merry way to feed his family, I hope.

The following is a part of Noah's preschool play translation of what he's saying is: A long way away 3 wise men saw a star in the eastern sky.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

To Rani and Trevor: Thanks for the church newsletters and other bits, it's great to hear all the news.

To MNMSS: Thanks for the kid's birthday gifts via Grandma they enjoyed it, sorry 'Rie Christmas gift is coming with Jason, forgot to add it to the pile of jandals (whoops secrets out)everyone else is getting.