Christmas in New Zealand is less about snow and sleigh bells and more about sun, sand and barbecues in the backyard. We've provided a range of stories that showcase some of the quirkier aspects of Kiwi Christmases past and present. You can also test yourself on our Kiwi Christmas quiz.
Auckland's giant Santa
Auckland's giant Santa on the Farmers building in 1960 (left) and the Whitcoulls building in 2009 (right), shortly after his makeover.
Auckland icon or 'old dodgy man'?
In 1960 Farmers erected a giant Santa on the front of their building on the corner of Hobson Street and Wyndham Street in Auckland. The fibre glass and steel tubing structure weighed over five tons (4535 kg) and stood at a height of about 59 ft (18 metres). It featured a winking eye and beckoning finger, which were intended to tempt customers into the store below.
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Credit:
Image: still shots from Should Santa stay or go? and Santa's new look face revealed provided by TVNZ OnDemand.
Santa parades
Politically incorrect Christmas games
Playing 'Light the cigarette race' at the Tolaga Bay School Christmas party, 1953
Search the Web for ‘Christmas games’ and you’ll be able to play or download a huge range of computer games – for kids and adults. But before e-games, people played all sorts of games around Christmas time. Some had a Christmas theme or adapted another game for the occasion, such as ‘Pin the nose on Rudolph’.
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Credit:
Archives New Zealand
Photographer: John Ashton
Reference: AAMK W3495, Box 7
Permission of Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga must be obtained before any reuse of this image.
A day off for Christmas
Christmas Day revellers on Plimmerton beach in the 1920s.
Christmas becomes a public holiday
It's hard for most of us today to imagine Christmas Day not being a holiday, but a day off on 25 December hasn't always been a legal entitlement.
Summer holidays
New Zealand Railways publicity poster for Caroline Bay, Timaru, 1935
Caroline Bay offered an entire programme of activities for holidaymakers over the summer. Starting on Boxing Day and finishing in mid-January, there were concerts and dances, sand-modelling contests, parades for pets and ‘Tiny Tots’, mother–son and mother–daughter contests and a wide selection of beauty contests. The New Year’s Eve midnight bonfire was the highlight, but the Miss Caroline Bay Bathing Beauty Contest was the glamour event through to the 1960s.
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