Whether it is lazing at the beach, working on the house or preparing for a cricket test, our top athletes have their holiday breaks mapped out.
Dean Barker, yachting
The new Team New Zealand skipper is taking a break from sailing for a fortnight to go on holiday at a secret location.
"I just have to get away from sailing completely - it's been a long year," he says. "I just need some time to myself."
Barker has withdrawn from the crew to sail Shockwave in the Sydney-Hobart race.
Wherever he is going, Barker will take his golf clubs, even though he rates himself as a bad player.
Rob and Sonia Waddell, rowing
New Zealand's favourite sporting couple will not be far from their skiffs this Christmas.
The Waddells will have a family Christmas at home in Cambridge.
They can afford only a couple of days off at Whangapoua Beach, on the Coromandel, before they are back in their boats in the New Year.
"We're right in the middle of our rowing season - I just got back into training last week," Sonia Waddell says.
"But we don't mind. The racing is fun and that's why we do it."
Harry Ngata, soccer
Christmas came early for Football Kingz soccer captain Harry Ngata when daughter Alyssa was born last month.
"She is our Christmas present," says Ngata.
The 29-year-old and his partner of three years, Angie Ivory, are looking forward to a Christmas which promises to be different in many ways. Instead of a hangi at his parents' home just outside Tolaga Bay on the East Coast, Ngata will spend time in Hamilton with Angie's father and his French partner.
"There will probably be a French taste to Christmas," says Ngata, who has Christmas Day off before resuming training on Boxing Day in preparation for the Kingz' game in Canberra next Thursday and another away match at Wollongong on January 5.
Helen Clarke, hockey
New Zealand hockey goalkeeper Helen Clarke admits that having the same name as the Prime Minister has been a good party line in the post-Olympic fervour.
But she is now looking forward to getting away to the Mangawhai Heads bach she and husband Glyn will share with family and friends.
"The hockey stick will stay home," says the 97-test veteran.
"It will be golf clubs and surfboards only. This is our chance to get away from it all.
"We will have breakfast in Auckland with Mum on Christmas Day and then go up to the beach.
"I'm not really into the traditional Christmas stuff. We go more for the barbecue now. It's great. I don't have to cook - that's a man's job."
While Clarke expects a "wee bit of weight might creep on over Christmas," she will keep running as she prepares for a date with the Koreans in March and the chance to become the first Kiwi female goalkeeper to play 100 internationals.
Barbara Kendall, boardsailor
New Zealand's Olympic rainbow girl is as excited as a little kid about her sole Christmas present - a kite surfer.
Kendall has been bitten by the latest water craze, and she and husband Shayne Bright will be trying out their new toys on Great Barrier Island on Christmas Day.
"I haven't had this kind of passion or fascination for anything since I started windsurfing," the three-time Olympic medallist says.
"We've already had our Christmas dinner [early this month] so we could go out and play."
After the festive break, Kendall is going sailing.
She is teaming up with her Olympic coach, Grant Beck, to sail a catamaran in the Hobie nationals.
Leilani Joyce, Squash
Christmas means sandpaper and a roller brush for the double British Open champion.
Joyce is renovating her new home - a 1910 villa in Hamilton - over the festive season, before she heads back to the court for serious training next month.
"This is my month where I get to do things that have nothing to do with squash," she says.
"I just didn't realise renovating was such a major job.
"We were in Rarotonga last week, where I was guest speaker at the Cook Islands Sports Awards, so that was the summer holiday."
Paul Thomson, rugby
Blues prop and Auckland NPC captain Paul Thomson will do what he always does over the holiday period and head to his mother's home at Whitianga Bay in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
The tiny town - "population 10" - swells by hundreds over the Christmas period. For Thomson, it is a place to get away from the pressures of top-level rugby and temptations of the city which might set his training back. Thomson packs an exercycle and his mother has a rowing machine, so he can still do his workouts.
"I love to spend time with my gorgeous mother, and go diving and fishing," he says.
"And it gets me away from all the boozing."
Bernice Mene, netball
As you read this, the Silver Ferns captain will be "feasting" in her parents' backyard in Wellington.
The Menes - dining out on spit roast - are having an early Christmas, as Bernice's sporting brothers have other festivities to attend on Christmas Day.
Mene will spend the New Year getting used to living in Auckland, where she will teach next year.
Once the netball season starts, she will commute to Invercargill every week to play for the Southern Sting again.
"I'm hoping I can get Mum up to Auckland after Christmas and we can hang out on Waiheke and do girl things."
Stephen Fleming, cricket
New Zealand cricket captain Stephen Fleming is used to the Boxing Day test match in Wellington dictating his festive celebrations. This year is no different.
While the rest of the country gears up for the arrival of Santa, Fleming will be joining the New Zealand team for their Christmas Day lunch and final preparations for the start of the one-off test match against Zimbabwe.
"It's nothing but cricket, cricket, cricket for all of us," he says.
"We'll have a team lunch on Christmas Day for those who want it, but everyone tends to be a bit cautious because it's easy to enter into the Christmas cheer."
Dean Rice, softball
Dean Rice will be able to sit back and enjoy the Christmas festivities and see the New Year in with family for the first time in many years.
A brilliant infielder and batter with the national softball side since the late 1980s, Rice retired this year after winning his second consecutive world title with the Black Sox.
Rice, whose long time partner and fellow softballer Jackie Smith was in the Olympic team in Sydney this year, usually spends the holiday period training for, and attending, national tournaments around the country.
But after the usual Christmas Day festivities, he and Smith will head to Cooks Beach on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula.
"It was one of the things I was really looking forward to about retirement," says Rice.
Sports: Stars take a Christmas break
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