Christmas at the Park, Rocket Park.

It was the first ever Christmas at the Rocket park organised by my church, the Mt Albert Baptist Church. About 3 to 4 thousand came to soak in the festive atmosphere at the YMCA venue.

The skies were kind, last night it poured the whole night, and I prayed it would be fine tonight. We had a glorious evening, and everyone had plenty of fun.

To the children, Santa or St Nick is synonymous with Christmas. So Santa was there holding children, and he was very obliging when I took his photo.

The Plunket Society is the recipient of the evening's proceeds. The Plunket society offers free health checks for 0-5 years and clinic checks. I had benefited from Plunket when I was a young mum, and to me, Plunket was a good choice.

3000 to 4000 party goers came to the teddy bears' picnic and Christmas celebration. My friend came from afar with her aged mum and young children.

It was an evening for the children at the Teddy bears' picnic. The father told me his daughter had named the big bear Rugby, our national game and the little bear superman.

The giant bear was there helped by his helper to give away lollies.

Our MC's for the night was Dave Wiggins and Petra Bagust.Dave Wiggins is New Zealand's top clean comedian. Hailed from USA, Dave brings an outsider's view on Kiwi culture. Petra is one of New Zealand's much loved personalities and on TV.

MABC has a ministry in ESOL, that is teaching English as a Second Langauge. Here Diane and a student are busy selling ice cream.

Teens leader David Tanner leads ESOl students Chiang and Mei Mei sell cold drinks. Behind them is a whole trailer load of ice and soft drinks. I wish I had taken a photo of that Kiwi make do fridge. The early evening was quite cool, and we didn't do a roaring business.

Next to the ESOL stand, was the jaccobs coffee, and under Dion, the hot coffee had a steady queue of business.



For the children, the free bouncy castles were great fun. The maximum age was 12, but a certain person pretended to be younger than his 13 years, and went bouncing as well.

There was a tent for face painting. One of my students told me she was going to bed with her face painted so she could go to school to show her friends.

Feliz Navidad!!!


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I am also posting more photos at my other site.
http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-at-park-mt-albert-rocket-park.html