A family blended from three continents go on manoeuvres, otherwise known as holiday, reports ALAN PERROTT.
It is almost a military exercise when the Mitchell family melting pot take their Christmas pilgrimage from Glen Murray, 29km south of Tuakau, to the grandparents in Puhoi, North Auckland.
Noel and Linda Mitchell's 6ha farm hosts a menagerie of goats, cows, chickens and the 11 offspring they have gathered from three continents.
After the couple have milked the animals, fed and polished the eight youngsters still at home, been to church, collected a small mountain of presents and then squeezed everything into two cars, there is the multi-ethnic matter of choosing what to sing during the journey. Sundry young New Zealanders squeeze alongside Fijians, Romanians and a young pair from Sierra Leone.
But Christmas is a cooperative effort. Noel and a couple of kids head out to select and chop their own Christmas tree - one big enough to stand over the small mountain of presents swapped between sons and daughters aged from 6 to 23.
Everyone else puts in extra time on the farm and in the kitchen.
And this year is a special Christmas for the Mitchell clan. Eldest daughter Eloise is returning home to make Noel and Linda grandparents.
The birth will also add a great-grandchild to the 21 grandchildren that Linda's parents, Pauline and Reg Harris, already boast about.
The scale and geographical spread of the family is just the way the Mitchells like it, even if it took a decade of battles with social welfare officials and between warring factions in Romania and Sierra Leone to achieve.
African daughters Samara and Abi were airlifted to the United States when their orphanage became caught in the middle of civil war, and Romanians Petirica and Steliina were adopted in the middle of the pro-democracy revolution.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from New Zealand
Minister rules out hybrid council, Crown observer
'Tauranga’s success is critically important to New Zealand’s success.'