This Christmas we want to love food and hate waste. Check out our favourite leftover recipes and share your own idea.

It's the busiest month of the year for the Mangere Budgeting Services Trust, with extra food hampers and Christmas parcels to arrange.

Because there's no fun in a truly cheerful lead-up to the 25th we've assembled a selection of gripes for the so-called festive season.

Gore District Mayor Ben Bell and staff recreating iconic Love Actually scene. Video / Gore District Council

We've unearthed a bunch of gadgets to help take the grief out of roadtrips.

When your life is affected by a chronic disease, living each day as normally as possible is very important.

A woman who was told she was terminally ill has extra reason to celebrate this Christmas - her doctors now say her cancer has gone.

City Missioner Diane Robertson is a schoolteacher turned therapist and charity chief whose abusive childhood once made Christmas Day a nightmare. She and her staff and volunteers will make Christmas dinner for 2,500 people next week.

We love to save our feet from hours of Christmas shopping, save the planet from stuff nobody wants, and show the people we love how kind we are.

A Santa impersonator has quit one of Britain's busiest grottos after he was told off for being brusque with the children whose parents had paid £5 (NZD$9.80) a time for them to meet him.

It's the season of goodwill and giving, with Christmas Day but a week away, writes Diane Robertson. Queues of children are waiting to enter Santa's Bach in Auckland's Silo Park.

People will be heading for the great outdoors to try out their presents this Christmas, if Trade Me searches are any indication.

Our Kiwi retailers have been embracing digital change. This doesn't mean they're abandoning their High St stores.

Community trust's mobile van brings party to youth to try to replace fighting with fun times.

It's shaping up to be an outdoor Christmas for many Kiwis, a list of most searched for items on popular auction site Trade Me suggests.

Shelley Bridgeman has indentified some key types of presents almost guaranteed to aggravate the recipient.

A young girl in the UK is set to be reunited with her favourite teddy bear following a remarkable social media appeal launched by the woman who found it.

The US$111.05 ($134) New York restaurant receipt includes a US$1000 tip and the words "god bless!" scrawled across it.

Planning on checking your emails from the beach or bach this summer? You're not alone. New research finds Kiwis are among the most hooked on work during holidays.

Don't bank on firing up the barbie on Christmas Day - rain is possible around the country, according to MetService.

Here are 16 important things I learned this year. Actually they are not all important or even new, but I'm a slow learner, writes Deborah Hill Cone.

Businesses are smiling, frazzled customers are queuing and there are still nine more days of shopping to go.

The SantaCon annual event occurs worldwide in more than 300 cities in 44 countries. Here are some pictures of punters partying in their Santa get-ups.

Sports books are a great Christmas buy. Andrew Alderson and Dylan Cleaver, two great devourers of the genre, offer 11 good reads (and one not so good) for this year.

Ben Crawford's ideas for stylish design presents you can gift to loved ones (or yourself).

Christmas spirits remained high at the Big Man in Red's party last evening - even without the traditional beers and wines.

Danielle Wright meets the people behind the businesses swapping the silly season for their busy season.

Guys, do you plan to propose to your loved one on Christmas Day?