12 hours earlier, priorities were a little different for people Local Focus spoke to.
Resident Shirley Scott says: "It's sort of like being isolated a bit because ... there's such a lot of things you can't do."
An earthquake prediction posted on Facebook and bad weather only made things worse.
"Things cooled down yesterday with the weather, sort of went cloudy and rained. It was really quite a bizarre sort of evening," Ms Cottle says.
During the powercut most businesses were unable to open and the main street was deserted.
But Benson's Auto Electrical could open and did their part to help.
"We built little boxes for people so they could charge phones, we have USB outputs that can run off a 12 volt battery," managine director Matthew Nelson Clark says.
Ms Scott says if you don't have alternative cooking methods then it is "quite hard to manage".
Although another power outage is scheduled so the line can be repaired, the whole of Gisborne will be hoping that the dramas are over, and they can get on with Christmas.
Ms Cottle's family just bought a Christmas lamb, "hopefully that's still cold because that was at the top of the freeze".
With the unexpected disasters over, Gisborne residents are welcoming the return of the Christmas rush, as life returns to normal at last.
But for the families of the two men, Christmas will never be the same.
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