It’s that time of year again – international Christmas trivia!

  • If you find a spider web on your Christmas tree in Ukraine, it’s a sign of good luck.
  • Some Armenians fast the whole week before Christmas, and then break the fast with a light foods such as fish, lettuce, and spinach.
  • If you’re in Iceland – watch out! You don’t have to just worry about Santa, but instead watch for 13 Yule Lads who will pull mischievous pranks on you. And where do these Yule Lads come from? Why from their mother of course, who kidnaps naughty children and boils them in her cauldron!
  • Despite being at a quite northern latitude, some communities in Ireland celebrate the holidays with a Christmas swim – brr!
  • In New Zealand, the Maori way of saying Merry Christmas is Meri Kirihimete, and there is a special Maori carol titled “Te Harinui” which means great joy.
  • Stay up on Christmas Eve in Argentina – at midnight everyone sets off fireworks to celebrate Christmas Day!
  • In Chile, a popular holiday drink combines coffee, milk, and liquor with cinnamon and sugar. It’s called Cola de Mono, or monkey’s tail.

Wherever you are celebrating the holidays this year, we are wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays and an adventure-filled 2020!

With love,

the Esplanade Team

Thank you to WhyChristmas.com for the fun trivia!

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Our travels started back in March of 2020. Our trip started and included a great week in Tahiti then New Zealand. Although that’s when Covid exploded while we were there in Tahiti. That’s when we found out they had closed the border into NZ. Thankfully we had Esplanade to get us back home. We finally got back on track to New Zealand this March. We had a full itinerary planned. When we arrived, we had a driver waiting for us to take us to our Glamorous hotel with a great view of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and the Mountains in the background. We traveled to Milford Sound by bus then traveled thru out the scenic Milford Sound. Then they flew us back to our hotel. Another trip was on a Steamboat that took us to Farm. We had a great dinner there and tour of the farm that included the sheep dogs working the sheep. We could go on and on about this trip. The people from NZ our super nice. This trip was great from start to finish. Truly a bucket list trip. Esplanade will definitely be our choice for international travel, without a doubt. <br />

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