A Very Christchurch Christmas
Let me rewind a bit and talk about the last 3 days here because they have, of course, been interesting, in that ancient Chinese curse kind of way.
So, on Friday I was sick and mildly delirious I think when the 5.8 quake hit. The car jiggled around and I did have the fleeting thought that it could be an earthquake, but when I started getting texts asking if I was okay and when Twitter and texts wouldn't go out on the network I didn't put it all together. Hence, arriving at my parents' house and finding out that my suburb and those nearby had been trashed again in another big earthquake and that we would most likely be staying with my parents was really disorientating. We sat on their deck because Mum and the kids were too scared to go back into the house and I couldn't get my head around what was happening. In the end we decided to go home and pick up some things because we literally only had what we were wearing with us, and also because I needed to reassure myself that our place wasn't too badly off. In an attempt to make sure the kids had a good Christmas regardless of anything else, we got all food related to Christmas, all clothing related to Christmas (and that included costumes for the Harry Potter party, more on that later), and all the presents and piled it all into the car along with nightclothes and one change of day clothes each. I was determined that no matter what, whether we had power or not, we were bloody well going to do Christmas Day the way the kids had been hoping to so I transferred it all to the fridge and freezer at my parents' house since they didn't lose power.
We stayed there that night again, had a barbeque dinner because the kids were still not that happy to be inside the house and basically went to bed early. Because I'm sick I slept through a lot of the earlier evening aftershocks but was woken by some at around 3.30 and stayed awake again for an hour or so before falling asleep properly around 5. I got woken up by my mother asking if I wanted to go shopping with her because she'd just got a phone call (at 7.15) from my mother in law to say she's been out to get her veggies for Christmas dinner and there were queues forming already. We got to the berry stand around 7.55 and joined the already decent queue. When they opened at 8 they called anyone who only wanted strawberries to the front because the raspberries and blackberries weren't ready yet. Thinking on her feet, Mum decided to just get strawberries so we got out of there really fast and were in a supermarket by 8.10 which was lucky because - unlike anything I've seen before - by 8.30 when we were lining up to buy our stuff there was a queue of roughly 100 people outside waiting just to get inside the shop. Actually I had seen it before - at the same supermarket just after February's quake, but never at that time of day. Christmas Eve is always insane in the shops, but not generally that bad at that time. We were glad to get out of there. From there we went to the mall for the few things we'd intended to get on Friday but which had been put on hold because of the quakes. Even the mall wasn't as busy as the supermarket had been, but it was still chaotic and we were glad to be out of there. I tried to get to one of my local supermarkets to get some things that were only available there, but as we walked in and I smelled the beer smash smell and saw the beer section was still in chaos I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do that so any thought of decent beers went out the window and we just headed right home without worrying about getting any of it - the queues were again huge and by then my fever had kicked in again and I needed to sleep. That supermarket is in Parklands and man the area was looking terrible. There is a growing call from people who live there to have their land rezoned from green to red so they can just leave and the government have promised to send in geotech people again to take a look. It wouldn't surprise me if it does go red because my word is it a mess.
I spent the afternoon asleep as did Seth. We assumed he was sleeping because of having been up so late the night before, but when he woke about five, said he had a sore head and was feeling bad we touched him and guess what! He has a fever too. So it was back to the doctor, who was thankfully open again after the quakes the day before and he now has antibiotics and painkillers as well as me. Lots and lots of fun! He was absolutely miserable for the rest of the evening and I was really worried his Christmas would be a write off, poor thing. He kept crying and saying 'why did all this have to be at Christmas, I just wanted a nice day' which made me blub a bit myself. We had dinner with my parents again and then came home by which time Seth's paracetamol had kicked in and he was quite keen to watch last year's Doctor Who Christmas special which meant we got the kids into bed and asleep by around 9.30 at which point I was able to start cooking. I had been meant to spend that day at home leisurely doing the last preparations, not dealing with quake clean up and stress and sick kids before having to cook late at night. Still, I got it done and was in bed just before midnight which was reasonable I guess.
At 6.40 am I was woken again by another quake which got the kids out of bed. Instead of being freaked as usual, though, they were distracted by the things Santa had left them which was good, and in fact that was the only one we all really noticed all day until a 4.1 at 5pm so that was nice. At least we got a relatively calm day and were able to relax. We headed over to my mother in law's house around 9am and the kids were ripping into their presents by about 9.30 which was really nice. They all had a lovely time and got spoiled well and good by everyone - even Santa was more generous than usual because of what they've been through this year and especially the last few days. Seth wasn't very hungry but was persuaded to eat a bit and at least was cheerful and alert(ish) most of the day. The photos of them from this year just aren't as bubbly as usual, which you've got to expect, but they were all a lot more relaxed than I would have thought just 2 days ago.
Because of the infection I'm fighting (it's a good'un apparently) I've been falling asleep sometime between mid morning and mid afternoon every day lately so while everyone else was on skype with family in Australia I flaked out on the couch and didn't wake up for 3 hours. By then most of the mess had been cleared away and dinner was ready. Neither Seth nor I ate a lot but we got to try a little of everything and it was very nice. Then it was the mad gallop home to get into costumes for my friend's Harry Potter party. She had gone all out - the entrance was done up like Platform 9 3/4, they had built a quidditch pitch in the back yard (Slytherin won - the ref was Snape and had an unfortunate bias), had made a potions cabinet/Ollivanders shop/Herbology centre. There was butter beer and various HP lollies and a massive gingerbread Hogwarts castle. They also put on a quiz after sorting us all into houses. My reputation precedes me and as soon as I was sorted into Hufflepuff suddenly it was the most popular house - and of course we won. It was a lovely evening but by 9.30 I was ready to flake out again so we went home. Photos will come in due course when I can manage to convince my camera that it really does want to allow my computer to have them.
All in all not a terrible Christmas Day even though I was so sick and even though the quakes kind of spoiled things a bit. I do feel bad for the people who got hard hit by liquefaction - for many of them it wasn't a good day at all. To get to and from my mother in law's house we have to go down Wainoni Road and by then it was all dried up so there were big puffs of dust being stirred up whenever a car went past - and in fact we watched a bike puff up some impressive clouds of it as well. I guess it's back to the dust masks again. The list of places where large deposits have been spotted, while not complete, is depressing reading. It includes my street, several around the kids' school and several others close by. It's hard at any time to see people going through this, but the looks of despair and depression on peoples' faces as they looked at their houses again was just really hard to deal with at Christmas. I made it as good as I could for my kids, but always in the back of my mind was the knowledge that it wasn't that easy for a lot of people nearby. The one good thing for them was the outpouring of support - I wasn't able to go along yesterday (Boxing Day) to help out because of being sick but there was another of the big events to help clean up and they got a huge number of volunteers. As someone said, the spirit of giving was alive and well this Christmas season and at least the people most affected had support.
And to leave this on a somewhat more cheerful note, when she heard about it this travel writer got people together and made this video of Christmas cheer for Christchurch. It was a lovely gesture and certainly made me smile.