Kiwis expats say New Zealand family has never been as far away as this Christmas

New Zealand has never seemed so far removed from the heartbroken kiwis living abroad this Christmas.

Kiwi businesswoman Sarah Ayala, who lives in Texas with her husband and children, had always thought that she and her family were just a flight from home when it came to life’s big moments.

She had long maintained an emergency cash fund to buy last-minute tickets to New Zealand or Argentina, where her husband was from, in case they had to rush home.

That had been a godsend when Ayala’s son was very ill as a baby and his mother rushed across from New Zealand to help her through difficult times.

But Covid-19 had raised barriers around the world.

Ayala was unable to return to New Zealand for her mother’s funeral in September and is now unable to return at Christmas to catch up with her remaining family, as her children only have two weeks of school vacation in the US.

“Trapped may be a bit of a stretch, but it’s a really weird feeling knowing that we can’t go when we need to,” he said.

And it’s not just your family.

The border wall of Covid protection that New Zealand has erected against the rest of the world makes family and friends seem even further out of the ordinary this festive time of year, says fellow American expat Hayden Garrett.

She has been in Colorado with her family for five years, but she can’t go home this Christmas because it’s too expensive.

The family’s isolation at home added to a bleaker holiday season in the U.S., where a surge in the virus meant the country faced a major challenge for the next four to eight weeks, he said.

Similarly, Ayala said she was proud of how New Zealand had dealt with Covid-19 and the way everyone collaborated to do their part to keep others safe.

By contrast, the virus was “out of control in the United States” and more people die every day than in the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York, he said.

“I’ve had people tell me that wearing a mask is like slavery or complaining about why all the people with health problems or old people ruin it for the rest of us,” he said.

“It takes my breath away, they are literally people I know and talk to.”

All staff and visitors to his workplace must wear masks, and Ayala jokes that he hired a new employee three months ago and hadn’t seen his face yet.

“I saw his driver’s license doing the paperwork, and I thought, ‘oh, this is what it looks like,'” he said.

People often downplay New Zealand’s achievements, saying it should manage the welfare of the virus as a small, isolated island, Ayala said.

But the country’s leadership and the everyday acceptance by Kiwis to do their part was incredible compared to much of the rest of the world.

It wasn’t easy either because the Kiwis had chosen to maintain a strict border that came with the sacrifice that they could not travel easily or that their family and friends returned home at Christmas.

“I am shocked by the quarantine rules, but I still agree with what has been done in New Zealand,” she said.

“And that’s probably the difference to what I see here in the US, people feel like they shouldn’t be affected in any way.”

Ayala said she was simply expressing the sadness of many Kiwis this Christmas at being so far from home.

While people always talked about how special a White Christmas was in America, no one did Christmas better than New Zealand, he said.

“There is a barbecue on the beach, the family gets together and everyone is very nice during the day, they have a few drinks, they sit in the garden, the children run and someone can start kicking a ball.”

It meant that when you see this year’s photos of your family together, there will be an additional pang in your heart.

“I’ll be like, ‘Aww, it would be so good to be there.