Christmas at Waihi beach

Our second kiwi Christmas....We all had to work Christmas eve, so after finishing work early, James and I packed up the Christmas presents as well as plenty of things for the weekend and headed down to Hamilton. Sal had to work late on Christmas eve so James, Si and I got a takeaway curry and chilled out in front of a movie, when Sal got home we ll turned in for an early-ish night.
As Si had to go to work on Christmas day, we were woken up at 6am to the sound of Christmas songs and Sal putting the kettle on, we all got up early and had a proper Christmas morning together with a poached egg breakfast. We then in true Christmas style proceeded to open Christmas presents round the Christmas tree (Santa even left a stocking for Sal, James and Si). Mum and Dad were able to join us on Skype for the present opening so it really felt like they were there for our Christmas morning. After Si had gone off to work, Sal, James and I packed up the car and headed out to Waihi beach on the bay of plenty.
We arrived at Waihi beach around 11am to be greeted by Fiona, Jen and Sonia (friends of Sals from Hamilton) in their PJ's opening their presents before we cracked open a few bottles of Champagne and headed to the beach. That afternoon we had a 3 course BBQ Christmas dinner complete with crackers and plenty of booze, the night continued with lots of food, alcohol and silly games.
Boxing day we were greeted with a crowd of people who came over from Hamilton for a day of alcohol, food and beach games, it was a gorgeous day and had a wonderful day on the beach before a massive BBQ back at the bach. Andy, Em, Dai and Ash all arrived around 3pm and the fun continues. At around 4pm most people had to head back to Hamilton for work the next day leaving the Bach with just Me, James, Andy, Em, Dai and Ash. (with Oli and his girlfriend Manar due to arrive later that evening) We did our present exchange in the sun with our final presents from Andy and Em being a water pistol each (not surprisingly we were given empty ones and while we were opening them the others ran off to get theirs -twice the size of ours) After a massive water fight with all of us sufficiently soaked we had another BBQ with the alcohol flowing. Boxing day night turned out to be one of the most amusing evenings with Andy demonstrating how easily he can fit his body through a wire coat hanger and a few other surprising talents.
Monday morning Si joined us having worked the Christmas weekend and got straight on the wine (this was his Christmas day!) We all decided to go on a nice walk over to a beautiful secluded beach which was about 40mins walk away, it was worth it with a white sand beach, rolling waves and beautiful pohutakawa trees leaning over the beach, we headed back as the weather started to turn and had some fun playing beach cricket on the beach opposite our bach. Tuesday morning James and I got up early (a very excited James) as we had to drive back to Auckland to pick up Alex and Laura from the airport!