Last chance for 30-year Christmas fest
Unless new helpers come forward, a 30-year tradition run by St Stephen’s Church in Tamahere will end.
An old fashioned Christmas festival has run out of the small, rural church hall since the 1980s, attracting visitors from as far as New Plymouth.
But the festival is run by elderly volunteers and the year-round work is hectic. It might not be over for good, volunteer Bev Greene said, as she hopes younger locals might take the reins.
‘‘We’re not getting any younger,’’ Greene said.
From each festival, around $20,000 is raised and donated to various charities, including the SPCA, Save the Children and Hospice Waikato.
During the year volunteers meet each week to create crafts such as candles, knitting and embroidery to sell out of the intricately decorated town hall.
The festival began in 1986, by Christine Pickering and her husband - ex-All Black, Rex Pickering who welcomed a group of women to make homemade goods in their barn, a group later dubbed ‘‘The Barn Girls’’.
One volunteer, Glenda Matthews, has even gifted her great-great-grandmother’s Christmas cake recipe to the festival, served to visitors with tea or coffee in bone china cups.
People return every December, Matthews said, especially retirees craving tradition.
‘‘It’s the highlight of their year,’’ Matthews said. ‘‘They wouldn’t miss it.’’ But Christine died this year, and Rex in 2016.
‘‘We’ve lost our founding members,’’ Greene said. ‘‘This really is the end of an era.’’
The festival has always been magical, Greene said, and it’s the simplicity and tradition that makes it special.
‘‘It’s is a very rewarding part of life. To get away from the hum drum of the city and commercialism. We don’t do Santa. It’s those little touches that we do that are old fashioned. It’s a Christmas feel.’’
The festival runs for two weeks beginning on December 2, out of St Stephen’s hall on 14 Tamahere Drive.