Half a Christmas is better than none at all!

One of the less desirable aspects about being a flight attendant would have to be missing out on celebrating birthdays, Christmas, New Years and Kylie concerts (not necessarily in that order). This year I think I was given a compromise for the festive season. I saw Christmas in with 14 great crew on a 5 day Melbourne/Auckland trip. I quite enjoy longer flights like these as it gives the crew a chance to get to know each other a little better and more opportunities to explore a city together!

On Christmas eve we were in Auckland, six of us girls and our Italian pilot totted off to a highly recommended Argentinian restaurant (as one does in New Zealand of course!). We drank some lovely local wine and sat at our table while the (very handsome) waiters kept bringing us plates of food and skewers of meat which they sliced up in front of us, on demand. The pork was especially delicious with a salivating apple sauce which I suspect was enhanced by a generous portion of maple syrup, it was gorgeously sweet on top of the salty crackling...

Our friendly (read: hot) waiter

After a few bottles of wine, and fastening up the top button of our pants, we made our way to a crowded Irish pub across the road to sing some pub renditions of Christmas tunes. At this point one of the girls suggested we should all head to one of the local churches for midnight mass. We staggered into a cab and arrived at the biggest and most beautiful church in Auckland (well according to the taxi driver, but it's possible he was more concerned with squeezing a few more mileage bucks out of us). What ever the case it was a pretty nice church!

Christmas day didn't get off to a great start. An hour and a half after taking off from Auckland one of the passengers collapsed in the aisle, creating a bit of unrest for the crew and passengers. Thankfully it wasn't too serious but our rest in Melbourne was very well deserved that evening.

As soon as we arrived in Melbourne that night I raced up to my hotel room and changed out of my uniform faster than you could say "roast dinner". My friend Phoebe who lives in Melbourne had made a lovely Christmas dinner for the two of us, complete with a beautiful bon-bon decorated table setting. Phoebe used to live with Lauren and I when she worked for the same airline and she is now setting the pace with the Virgin Blue crew! As fate would have it all three of us (Phoebe, Lauren and I) were in Melbourne on Boxing Day, so we had a very yummy-honey breakfast at our hotel's buffet (see pic below), before putting on our strongest fighting armour for the boxing day sales in the city.

Now THAT'S a buffet!