'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and All Through the Prison...

For one reason or another, the prison staff have all gathered here in Napier as poor, displaced travellers away from their families on Christmas. This actually works to our mutual benefit, as we all have the same goal of making the holiday as memorable as possible in the weirdest of circumstances. We're all from the Northern Hemisphere, and so to have Christmas during the summer where snow is painted on store front windows while we walk by in shorts and Santa Claus is overheating in his suit is all common ground to marvel at.

This is what a Southern Hemisphere Santa should look like

We decided to all pitch in 20 bucks for a Christmas feast, and had a quick brainstorming session to figure out everyone's favourite Christmas dishes. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Rachel, Jonne, and I cooked a meal for 10. Mashed Potatoes, Asparagus, cranberry sauce, gravy, salad, Carrot/Pumpkin/Kumara/Potato bake, cauliflower with cheese sauce, and stuffing. Will came in a bit later to prove his mastery in cooking the lamb we featured as our main dish (it seemed apt, being in New Zealand).

Dinner was served around 6, and we all gathered together to eat, drink, and be merry. The food was absolutely delicious, and I was perfectly overstuffed as everyone should be on Christmas. Abi made tirimasu for dessert that she soaked in about 2/3 of a bottle of kahlua, so if we weren't feeling the wine we drank before, we were definitely feeling it at that point. I even got presents! The owners of the prison got everyone chocolates all nice and gift wrapped, and then the inmates did a white elephant gift exchange, where I got more chocolates. This was perfect for me, because A) I love chocolate, and B) I have absolutely no extra room in my backpack to carry anything around. After laying down to recover from a brief food coma (and while the others did the dishes, heh heh), a bunch of us went down to The Cri, a local pub, decked out in our Christmas cracker hats and some sparkly garland from the tree. We played some pool, drank, and danced for a while, but sadly they kicked us out at midnight. This didn't bother me since it was Christmas Eve, but apparently in parts of Britain, pubs are busiest the day before Christmas so the boys were annoyed. Oh well. We came back to the prison and Alex, Will and I played shithead (a really fun card game) for about 3 hours. Quite different from my usual tradition of eating at Baba's, church, and watching White Christmas, but no complaints here.

Feast!