KEY POINTS:
Arthur Broome's best-ever Christmas present was hand-delivered by two ambulance officers as they carefully carried his wife, Barbara, wrapped in a sheet, down a flight of stairs in the couple's Takanini home.
Mr Broome, 75, had not seen his wheelchair-bound wife for more than a month after the lift she used to get to the ground floor broke down.
"I'm looking forward to seeing my darling when she gets down ... I hope they are quite used to getting people down stairs and she's not hurt."
After a last-minute lipstick touch-up, 76-year-old Mrs Broome was strapped into a bright orange carry chair and safely delivered into the lounge yesterday morning.
"Good morning darling ... You're looking good," she said as they kissed.
Mrs Broome was impatient to get the chair straps off so she could give her husband of 53 years a big Christmas hug. Mr Broome broke down in tears as they clasped hands.
Patsy Carlyle, the St John Ambulance duty operational watch manager, also found herself wiping away a tear.
"This has to be our best Christmas," she said. "Too often it's sadness in our job."
The Broomes, or "Ma and Pa" as they are called by their children and grandchildren, had until yesterday been able to communicate only by telephone.
The lift was removed on November 20 and the Ministry of Health had failed to get a new one installed as promised.
Mrs Broome has multiple sclerosis and has needed a wheelchair for 20 years. Mr Broome has cancer and his back is broken in four places.
After a brain lesion he had spent many years in a rest home, so Christmas together - the first time in the family home for a decade - was extra special.
Their reunion was made possible by the generosity of an anonymous Herald reader, who saw stories of the couple's plight and paid St John $105 to carry Mrs Broome downstairs and then back again in the afternoon.
Yesterday they shared a meal of chicken, ham, scallops, new potatoes and peas, followed by a trifle Mrs Broome had made upstairs.
She said she was tiring of being trapped on the top floor, which had seen her miss out on her Christmas socialising this year.
A new lift has been installed but has yet to be certified as safe for use, because of concerns about its size.
