Christmas in New Zealand
Many of Australia’s Christmas traditions also apply to New Zealand: as with its larger neighbour, New Zealand celebrates Christmas with traditional Northern Hemisphere winter imagery, though to some extent the symbols of the holly and ivy common to the British and North American Christmas are replaced by the P?hutukawa tree, which blossoms annually in late December and is thus often called the “New Zealand Christmas tree”. This does not stop New Zealand homes being decorated with the more standard pine tree however. Children in New Zealand are also told of the surreptitious visit of Father Christmas to leave presents.
Traditional winter-styled hot roast food also has a role in New Zealand’s festivities, Christmas dinner is also the place where Christmas Crackers are used, people will pull a cracker with another before eating. Traditional (generally British) Christmas desserts are also consumed, i.e. Christmas Pudding, Trifle, Christmas Cake and Mince Pies. Also served is the traditional dessert of pavlova.
House decoration is also popular in New Zealand and people put up strings of lights on windows, roofs, decks and fences. Store chain, The Warehouse hosts a competition to find the best-decorated house of the year.
As with Australia, the watching of television is not a strong part of New Zealand Christmas traditions, though some Christmas-specific programmes are usually shown, usually including a mix of religious programmes and special one-off episodes of regular television series (many of them British or American shows). The Queen’s Christmas message is also broadcast at around 6pm on Christmas evening.
The Australian tradition of Carols by Candlelight is popular in New Zealand, especially in Auckland and Christchurch, where there is usually a large outdoor carol-singing gathering known as Christmas in the park.
In keeping with the festive season a number of parades are held in the major centers of New Zealand (not including local parades around the country). The most popular of these would be the Auckland Santa Parade down Queen Street with numerous floats and marching bands attracting large crowds every year, although it is held during late November (to accommodate the holidaymakers), it is seen as the preamble to the later festivities.
Add A Comment