Christmas and Cows

New Plymouth physical education teacher Tracey Dravitzki explained New Zealand Christmas celebrations to a York News-Times journalist while stopping off in the American country town to participate in a local primary school’s classes with her cousins. Dravitzki is in York until Christmas week, visiting her uncle, Paul Dravitzki, and his family. She has taken two years off work in New Zealand to travel the world. It takes so long, and costs so much, she says, to go anywhere from the bottom of the world, that many New Zealanders do it this way. Tracey spent the last year and a half using London as her home base to travel Europe. She worked some while she was there, too. Her family are dairy farmers and keep about 300 cows. Christmas Day starts like any other, she says. “Someone has to get up and move the cows.” They eat breakfast, exchange a few presents, and go to church. Then, in a tradition familiar to many Americans, it’s “dinner at Granny’s.”