Obligatory Xmas post

Xmas turned out to be a reasonably nice day for a walk around the neigbourhood.  I wanted to find a good pohutukawa tree since it's kind of our national Christmas icon-tree.  Lo!  It comes already decorated.  Although, you can't cut one down and have it in your living room because they're protected and it's illegal to cut them down - you wouldn't to anyway because those flower stamens would be worse than pine needles - much better to admire them in their natural habitat.  So anyway, I went down to the main road because I know there are some there... turns out the best specimen in the vicinity is actually the one outside the neighbours' place, so here's the second-best.