Santa came down a motorhome vent for a South African family celebrating Christmas on the road in Dunedin.
Parked up at the Dunedin Holiday Park, the Williams family, of Benoni, a town about 26km east of Johannesburg, were more than 11,000km from their extended family.
They made the most of the day celebrating out of their motorhome with a trestle table filled with a feast father Nathan Williams cooked on the holiday park’s communal barbecue.
Mr Williams said it was the family’s first time experiencing Christmas in New Zealand and despite the rain they had had a wonderful day.
They went for a walk as a family to Marlow Park earlier in the day and had a lovely time seeing so many other families out and about enjoying themselves.
“It’s been a really nice time,” he said.
“We took off on our scooters, explored the roads, went to the parks.”
It was their first Christmas away from their extended family and they were enjoying the “peace and quiet” of New Zealand.
The family had been in New Zealand since December 9 and they had been all over the South Island.
The best part of the trip had been paragliding in Queenstown, Mr Williams said.
He liked New Zealand a lot because the air was clean and found it to be a “very spiritual” place.
Back in South Africa, people were always in your space, he said.
In New Zealand everyone minded their own business.
The family were planning on spending Boxing Day in Dunedin and then heading away to Tekapo.