Ex-Southlander Alec Beange will celebrate Christmas in his ''usual'' way - preparing to launch a giant helium balloon in the Antarctic for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), before coming to Wanaka to do more of the same in the new year.
Mr Beange (40) has lived near Edom, in east Texas, for about 10 years, but was born in Wyndham and lived there for many years before moving overseas.
He works for New Mexico State University as a balloon technician mechanic/operations safety specialist/training instructor and is contracted to Nasa on its balloon programme, which will be based at Wanaka Airport for a couple of months next year.
His work includes preparing parachutes and balloon launch equipment, ensuring hazardous operations follow Nasa-approved procedures and training others on equipment such as overhead hoists and mobile cranes.
Mr Beange arrived in the Antarctic on November 10 - his seventh visit - for a two-month stay.
While there, he works 10 hours a day, seven days a week, with a day off every two weeks, except in bad weather.
Tomorrow would generally be ''just another work day'', although he and his colleagues would ''have a few beers, play some pool or shuffleboard at the bar'' and hopefully sit down to a full Christmas dinner at McMurdo Station.
''Unless we have really nice weather, then we will be attempting to launch a 2.5-tonne science payload.''
He would phone his wife and children in Edom for Christmas, and ''I always send them something from the Scott Base store''.
He also has several packages of his own to open from his family in Texas and New Zealand.
''The mail delivery can be pretty sporadic down here so I make sure if my wife is going to send me something she sends it early.''
Spending Christmas in the Antarctic was not Mr Beange's first choice, but it was what he was used to.
''[It] is a usual thing for me - an unusual Christmas would be spent at home with my wife and kids.''
Although his work involved much travel, it also allowed his family to have a nice lifestyle, including regular holidays to New Zealand to visit family.
After the Antarctic, he hoped to spend a few weeks at home in Texas before arriving in Wanaka around February 1, for eight weeks' work.
There, he will be part of a crew which will carry out a test-launch of Nasa's huge ultra-long duration balloon from Wanaka Airport in March.
The balloon is as big as a rugby pitch and occupies 0.4 million cubic metres and will be able to maintain a constant altitude for about 100 days.
''We will be doing a lot of preparation work in February. We will be renting a big mobile crane that we will need to modify to be able to use it as a launch vehicle.
''Since this balloon is a test balloon, there won't be any science on the payload except for our own electronics, GPS, and flight hardware etc.''
