Usually November is our annual pre Christmas Farmer's parade in Auckland. Farmers Santa Parade started in 1934. This year’s parade is the number 76th.
Parents, grand parents and children line the main streets of Auckland to watch the carnival displays of floats, music, dancing and the works. This is the main parade as there are similar smaller parades in the suburbs like Henderson. We have about 1.3 million people, about 20% of Aucklanders and hordes of tourists are at the Parade. It is summer here, and it gives a different feel to the tourists from the Northern Hemisphere. I used to take my kids, but they lost interests when they grew older, especially when they have to wait for so long in the hot sun..
1989, the year Andrew was born and died, my very good friend Gwen offered to take D and G to go with her. It was so touching of her. She said," the girls would like to go, and I know you have no mood to go."
These photos were taken in 2006, the last time Sam went to the Santa's parade. After that he said," It is boring."
The Parade Route is 2.2kms long and takes approximately 50 minutes to pass any given point. The Parade ends at approximately 3.30pm with the After Party from 3.30pm to 5.30pm. It is the biggest event in the heart of the city of Auckland.
New Zealand is famous for her Manuka honey. It is known as liquid gold. The bees were there.
Murray Ball's 'Footrot Flats' cartoon strip characters, farmer Wal and Dog, became iconic characters of life on the farm. They became popular even in Australia. It ran from 1975 until 1994 in newspapers around the world,
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There were many bands that played.
When Santa came in his sleigh pulled by his reindeers, the children cheers. I grew up in a culture which did not believe in Santa. I did not tell my kids that Santa came. While the girls were born in New Zealand, they and Sam grew up as kids in Singapore. So there was no problem of ruining their fun.
This is the iconic Farmer's Santa of Auckland. We were driving down from Upper Queen Street to the Downtown of Auckland. Santa is now perched at the Whitcoulls building. He shifted from Farmer's Trading Company at Hobson street.
I was so preoccupied with taking Santa's photo that I forgot to take the photos on the Queen Street. You can see the ribbons twirling on the poles on both sides of Queen Street, our main street of CBD.
Christmas decoration is simple compared with Singapore.
Santa has reindeers by his sides, and this year, they remodeled them and didn't reveal the remake until Santa's parade.
The big man himself, a romantic story, you either love him or loathe him.
Friday My Town Shootout Dec.18th
This weeks theme is ""your town "dressed for Christmas".
http://mytownmrlinky.blogspot.com/
http://mytownshootout.blogspot.com/
The Farmer's Trading company is 100 years old this year and Santa made his debut on their big Hobson Street store in 1960. Farmers erected a giant fibreglass Santa weighing two tons (1814 kg) on the front of their building on the corner of Hobson Street and Wyndham Street in Auckland.The store sadly no longer no longer exists, it has become the Heritage Hotel. It is more 20 metres or 79 feet tall, and it's gigantic size used to frighten some children.
To the PC correctness people, Santa is a dodgy or dirty old man. He had a winking eye and a finger that beckoned people to the store. Some PC said he was a peadophile and the finger was to attract kids.
When interviewed, most grown ups remember Santa and would like him to stay.
Santa was Farmers Santa for almost 30 years. But in 1990 they put him up for sale because of the massive costs of running the ‘aged and inefficient landmark’. This was the same year Farmers turned over responsibility for its Santa Parade to the Auckland Children's Christmas Parade Trust.
After a roundabout trip to an undignified sojourn at a rigger's yard and sold for $1, Santa made a come back. Gone was the winking eye and beckoning finger. Please read below if you are interested.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/aucklands-giant-santa
The Manukau City Shopping Centre purchased the giant Santa and he graced their building for three or four years. But at some point they also found the burden of his upkeep too heavy and for another couple of years he lay disused in a rigger's yard. In 1998 a marketing and events consultant, Stephen Hanford, purchased Santa from the yard for $1. It cost about $40,000 to restore the ageing Santa. This included a paint job, removing rot from the fibreglass structure and rust from the supporting structure. Over 60 people contributed time, services or money to the project.
The restored Santa found a new home above Whitcoulls on Auckland's Queen Street, and the company took on his annual bill of $55,000. This covered liability insurance, storage, and the cost of getting him up and down each year. But in December 2008 Whitcoulls declared that they could no longer absorb the cost and gifted Santa to the city. This put the burden back on ratepayers. Auckland CBD lobby group, Heart of Auckland City, subsequently asked Aucklanders whether they wanted foot the bill for Santa. Alex Swney, the CEO of the group explained:
In December 2009 sculptor Damien Kutia, the man behind the revamped appearance of Auckland's giant Santa, put Santa's ‘dodgy winking eye' up for sale on TradeMe. It sold for $790 with a percentage of the money going to the Child Cancer Foundation.
