Whether you’ve had your Christmas shopping sorted for months or you’re still deciding who in your family will be hosting the typical NZ Christmas dinner this year, NZS.com has you covered with a whole host of great Christmas ideas and tips to help you save money at Christmas and make the most of the holiday season.

The Christmas holidays may still be some weeks away, but office Christmas parties are already in full swing, which may mean participating in a little “secret Santa” shopping at the last minute.

If hitting the mall and finding some great Christmas gifts and the best toys for Christmas is your next priority, consider doing some of your shopping online to reduce your stress and help you avoid impulse purchases.

As for the silly season and Christmas Day traditions, why not get in to the spirit of things by sending out real Christmas cards (not emails), or by baking up a storm with some delicious Christmas recipes? And if you’ll be celebrating a Christian Christmas with the family this year, you could even get together with members of your church to sing some traditional Christmas carols at a local rest home to spread some holiday cheer.

Of course, the Twelve Days of Christmas doesn’t start for another couple of weeks so you’ve still got a little time up your sleeve to hang your Christmas pictures and sort your Christmas trees and decorations.

Good luck with your NZ Christmas planning! Be sure to keep checking NZS.com as more Christmas articles, hints and planning ideas are added over the following weeks.

Whether you’re looking for a holiday house or bach to spend a couple of weeks relaxing with the family, or a luxury retreat to indulge in the upcoming New Year’s festivities in style, the list of NZ accommodation options is huge for NZ travel buffs.

Make the most of the excellent online travel resources while researching your holiday, and book your NZ accommodation online now to grab some great travel deals.

And while you’re searching, why not check out the fantastic selection of NZ attractions available at your holiday destination? With so many great places to stay, sights to see and adventures to be had, your next holiday is bound to be a great one.

Christmas and the summer holidays are right around the corner, meaning lots of Kiwi families will be opting for an adventurous camping NZ holiday.

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Getting out and seeing New Zealand’s great outdoors doesn’t have to mean roughing it though. If you’d like to experience New Zealand your way, why not opt for a campervan rental, so you can take care of your travel and accommodation in one easy hit.

A campervan NZ road trip is one of the best ways to see the countryside, while also being able to take the comforts of home with you while you travel. Whether you’re exploring the north or the south during your camping NZ summer holiday, getting behind the wheel of a campervan or motorhome will offer you the best of both vacation worlds.

The Rotorua pools are a popular destination for tourists and travelling Kiwis. Rotorua Walk the Line divx may be one of the tourism destinations of New Zealand with its unique mix of adventure and therapeutic attractions, but there’s no doubt the spa Rotorua experience is at the top of all visitors’ lists.

If you’re planning a mini-vacation, a weekend away or a longer break during the off-peak season, check out the Rotorua pools and soak up the serenity.

There are tons of great winter packages around this time of year, with many fantastic off-peak season bargains leaving more mini-break cash in hand for a spot of shopping.

Modern hotels French Kiss video offer the ultimate in style and comfort, so whether you pick somewhere close to home or you decide to get out of town for a few nights, pamper yourself and select one of the luxury hotel rooms on offer around New Zealand to unwind and spoil yourself.

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Make a luxury hotel booking

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For more ideas on winter packages and mid winter getaways check out the NZS.com

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Looking for the best job in the world? Your competition is stiff – over 200 people have applied for the job as the caretaker of Hamilton Island, off the coast of Queensland, a position which requires the successful applicant to explore the Great Barrier Reef, laze by the beach and make friends with locals.

The 6-month position will pay $180,000 NZD, and has created so much interest that the job application site has crashed today after over 800,000 visits since Monday. Technicians were forced to boost the site’s server capacity several times this morning, as applicants uploaded their one-minute video applications by the dozen.

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Dead Silence download My Friends Tigger & Pooh’s Friendly Tails move The position is not a competition and is a genuine job listing, requiring legitimate caretaking tasks as well as the more leisurely activities which must be regularly completed. The caretaker will also get to live rent-free in a $6 million villa, and will need to report back on their experiences via blogs, video diaries and media interviews.

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Launched as a viral marketing ploy to draw intention to Hamilton Island as a tropical holiday destination, it is estimated that the campaign will generate $85 million NZD worth of publicity worldwide.

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Are you set with your holiday season travel plans yet? For most of us, the answer to that question is still no, even though we’re only 6 weeks out from the festive break. The reason? Searching for the best travel deals can be such a tasking experience it’s enough to make you want to stay home!

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Trying to find the cheapest flights and best accommodation for you and your family isn’t always easy, especially when you don’t know where to start. Scour the daily paper every morning looking for flight sales? Open five windows or tabs at once and compare site after site (and trying to remember which prices included taxes and other costs and which didn’t)? It’s all a bit much, especially at this time of year.

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Luckily, NZS.com has just launched a brand new travel deals section – and we’re about to make planning your holiday a whole lot easier for you. Our new travel page is powered by Wego, and searches over 100 different travel websites, including online travel agencies like Zuji, consolidators like Orbitz, airline websites, and hotel websites. This means we can find you the best deals available online, even sale fares and limited promotional deals from budget airlines like Pacific Blue and Jetstar.

It’s fast, it’s easy, and you can customise just about every variable – from flight times to price range – so make sure you plan your travel this Christmas via NZS.com’s New Zealand travel deals section.

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‘ many New Zealanders are not terribly familiar with, but Halloween has become increasingly popular in New Zealand over the past decade – and it’s happening tomorrow night.

While originating in Ireland, we typically think of Halloween as a purely American tradition. With its roots in Celtic custom, Halloween relies on the atmosphere of darkness and withering foliage (as seen at this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere), so it’s not surprising that with October 31 in New Zealand approaching long, light, summer nights, the trend isn’t as popular as it is Stateside.

However, largely through media images (how many Halloween specials of The Simpsons have you seen?), this generation of Kiwi children are eager to jump on the ghoul and goblin-lead bandwagon and into the spirit of All Hallows’ Eve.

Do we celebrate halloween? What can New Zealanders expect from it this year? While private Halloween parties are the most common celebration of the event, trick-or-treating isn’t uncommon in New Zealand, especially if you live in a area populated by younger families. Make sure you have a bag of chocolates and lollies

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on hand in case you get a few spooky visitors – you don’t want to be the house that gets the ‘trick’ (although unlike in the movies, it probably won’t involve rotten eggs or toilet paper).

Soldier’s Girl divx You can get in to the spirit low-key style by watching on of the many scary movies which will screen on NZ TV tomorrow night, or rent a DVD Just Married video classic like Psycho, Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street.

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for the 2008 summer holiday season. Queen’s birthday at the beginning of June was the last long weekend New Zealand was privy to – so we’re all relieved to have Labour Day coming up next Monday after a four-month-drive of full working weeks.

The 27^th of October signifies the beginning of long weekends, with most of the regional anniversaries occurring between November and March, and along the way Kiwis get to enjoy Christmas, New Years, Waitangi Day and finally Easter finishing off the summer season in April.

Let’s hope the Kiwi weather gives us another great summer, can you smell the BBQs already?

What are your plans for the first long weekend? If you haven’t made any yet, grab a cheap flight out of your home city and check out one of the great central backpackers

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New Zealand has to offer. Backpacker accommodation in New Zealand isn’t just for international students anymore; many city backpackers offer all of the luxuries of hotel accommodation (from private rooms to bars to WiFi access) at a fraction of the cost. The best thing about a backpackers is that normally you can book in on the fly, without a reservation – or with very little notice. Why not do something spontaneous and check in to a backpacker hostel

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this weekend?

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Looking forward to a long weekend? The NZS.com team certainly are. Queen’s Birthday is celebrated is this Monday – but you may not know that it’s not actually her real birthday, the celebratory date changing of the monarch’s birthday is a long standing tradition amongst the British royal family. To get the full story on why the Queen has two birthdays, check out our Queen’s Birthday Holiday article.

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What’s a better way to celebrate Queen’s Birthday this weekend than catching Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical live on stage! The classic Aussie road movie is brought to life (or shall we say, larger than life?) across the Tasman for 2 weeks only, now showing in Auckland until June 7. Tickets are available from Eventfinder

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Not interested? Enjoy the last public holiday of the season, for most New Zealanders we won’t get another one until Labour Day!

Image from Flickr.

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