Christmas miracles - part 1

For us this year we had two Christmas 'miracles'. The 2nd one was more impressive but i'll let Blaise tell that one.

I'll handle the 1st one.
We had been to Raglan earlier this year. We arrived at the end of the tourist season and we had left with a less than good impression of the locals. They all seemed cold and putting in the bare minimum of service. We thought it was in part due to being the end of tourist season and they were sick of people coming in but a small part thought that maybe Raglan was just "one of those places".

I would like to set the record straight and say now that Raglan is a wonderful place and i recommend you go there.

What happened to cause this change of opinion. Let me tell you...

It was December 25th. Blaise was on the never-ending quest to find wind. My Christmas plans involved knitting in the truck. It wasn't a glamorous Christmas but it was fine by us. Our initial lunch plans to get fish and chips was thwarted by everything in Raglan being closed. Fair enough it was Christmas day and we did have food so we headed back to the estuary to wait for wind and prepare our Christmas feast. Hard-boiled eggs, lunch meats, cherries, sprite and chips. As we sat looking at the water the British couple next to us (also waiting for wind) got a text saying "come to the town hall, they're feeding travelers". We had 2 hours at least for the outgoing tide so we packed back into the truck and headed into town.

We arrived at the town hall thinking " a plate of turkey would be nicer than hard-boiled eggs" but when we walked in we thought we might be in for something a little more grand. There were long tables laid out and decorated. Each plate had a small ornament or gingerbread cookies on it. As soon as we sat down people came around with juice, red and white wine and bubbly (and according to Blaise "not the cheap stuff"). They had 2 guitarists playing away and finally a gentleman stood up and welcomed us to the 1st annual Raglan Christmas dinner. He announced that for dinner we had a wonderful feast: a full spit lamb, mussels on the 1/2 shell, sushi, a roasted pig, a hangi, a full salmon. Our mouth's were watering and the two young German boys sitting next to me were in throes of rapture. They had been living in their car the last 2 months (a nissan sunny) and the hadn't a lot to spend on decent food. When we got in words could not describe the food laid out. On top of what he had announced there was salads, potatoes, breads, side dishes and an entire dessert table in one side of the room. Loaded with food we hurried back to our table to devour our feast while the servers who weren't serving started singing Christmas carols with the guitarists.

Just when i thought this can't get any better we heard "ho ho ho" and 2 Santas walked into the hall. We were right up by the main stage and on the stage there was a huge tree surrounded by what we thought were stage prezzies. Again we were wrong, the Santas got to work taking all those prezzies and handing one each to each and every person at the tables. I got a violet mist spray, poor Blaise got a pen and notepad. The two German boys got a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and a tape measure. A young man across from me got a bone necklace of two dolphins swimming...stunning. A very offended woman younger than me got wrinkle cream (i think she missed the point). The families were really cleaning up, the gifts kept piling up in front of the kiddies.

On our way out we asked the gentleman "what gives" (in more polite phrasing than that) and he said it his idea to get the people who were alone on the holidays a family dinner. Turns out Raglan has a poverty issue and a homeless issue. He wanted those people to have a true Christmas experience; then he grabbed all the seniors from the retirement home and figured he'd invited travelers from backpackers and the like to come as well as we were away from our families. He then got everyone in town to help, he told them he didn't want money, in fact he wouldn't accept money, he wanted donations of food, gifts and time. And boy did Raglan come through. We were blown away.

For the 2nd Christmas miracle you will have to get it from Blaise. It's a really good one!