Santa’s helpers put in the hard yards
The true spirit of the season is found behind the scenes. Nicole Lawton reports.
Annette Coulson is on track to achieve her personal best of 50 Santa sacks.
Each pillowcase-shaped bag takes her about an hour to sew, and will end up full of donated toys and hanging on the ends of beds in Auckland’s Starship children’s hospital.
‘‘I have six grandchildren and watching them open their presents on Christmas Day just melts your heart.’’
Christmas might appear to be prematurely infiltrating the malls, but for some, tinsel in November is child’s play. Volunteers such as Coulson have been conjuring up the yuletide magic for months already.
She says the thought of children missing out when they were stuck in hospital over the festive season was unbearable.
She signed up for the 20-strong ‘‘knitting nanas’’ group at her workplace, Mercury, and together they are creating 300 Santa sacks.
Wellington City Mission has been busy assembling about 3000 tailor-made food packages for the needy, since October.
Each has a mix of staple items such as pasta, rice and canned tomatoes, and treats like chocolates, mini pavlovas and Christmas cookies – and the odd toy.
The mission’s Olivia Lange says the packages are aimed at getting families through not only Christmas but the week after – when the dollar is usually stretched thin.
They are personalised to suit the intended family/individuals. ‘‘An extra large family might get four parcels and one with more kids will get extra toys.’’
The Auckland City Mission, on the other hand, has been planning its Christmas lunch since January.
This year’s meal includes 300kg of ham, 2000 chicken drumsticks, 500kg of potatoes and kumara, and salads and desserts.
Organiser David Ciurlionis says the majority of food served is donated around September.
‘‘It’s such a beautiful day, the volunteers are so welcoming and amazing with all of our guests and the Christmas spirit really is there.’’
Pam Glaser, the mastermind behind Auckland’s Farmers Santa Parade started planning this year’s parade while the last was still unfolding.
‘‘No one else does it at this scale. It’s draining because you’re doing it all day every day – I’d love to clone myself into another five people.’’
It’s a similar story for the organiser of Wellington’s ‘‘A Very Welly Christmas’’, Jamie Wilson.
He, too, starts planning each event during the previous year’s festival. One of the best parts of his job is getting to walk around the 30,000 crowd, with no-one knowing it was he who organised the whole thing.
‘‘I feel like the fairy godmother of Christmas because I get to bring all this stuff to the people for free. It really is a sprinkle of fairy dust across Lambton Quay.’’