It’s a warm summer’s day in Wellington, New Zealand. T-shirts, shorts, and sunglasses abound. People are returning back to work on the tail end of their lunch breaks to the music of street performers. A man in a Christmas hat walks by- what? Welcome to Christmas season in New Zealand.
Being in the Southern hemisphere, the seasons here in New Zealand are the inverse to what I’m used to. December, and therefore Christmas time, is in the middle of summer. This has led to some interesting iconography surrounding Christmas.
I’ve been taking great joy in spotting snowmen and artificial snow as part of Christmas decorations. New Zealand is generally a mild climate, even in the winter. Wellington has seen snow once in the past 35 years1, and generally can only been seen on the peaks of the tallest mountains. White Christmases are definitely not a thing here. And yet, here’s a pic of our local supermarket:
The snowman can often be seen against other common Christmas imagery:
Perhaps the penguin is more appropriate here than it is back in the UK, as wild penguins actually exist here?
One may also see fake trees covered with fake snow:
Or even “snow” on their fried chicken:
The snow motif can also be seen on Christmas accoutrements such as crackers:
To cope with all this snow, Santa Claus can most commonly be seen in his traditional cold weather gear:
Even when we’re going for a more classical Saint Nicholas style Santa, he’s still dressed for the cold:
During my wanderings I did encounter a single Santa wearing shorts in a shop window:
When I was taken to a Christmas themed pub quiz I did also see someone wearing a Christmas shirt which features Santa on the beach in shorts.
The Christmas cards here were generally quite similar to those seen in the UK:
In a shop for locally made products I did find some Christmas cards featuring local birds:
I’m a big fan of fantails, so this was nice to see!
I also spotted the use of Tūīs (a common bird in the area) in local Christmas signage:
The Tūīs also made it onto the occasional Christmas street banners:
Christmas decorations in the streets of Wellington are few and far between:
I commented on this to a friend, who pointed out that there’s not much point in doing many Christmas lights when the sun doesn’t go down until gone 9pm when most people wouldn’t be about to enjoy them. She also pointed out that there are occasional strips of lights on lamp posts, but agreed that it’s nothing like one might see back in London.
I decided to spend a spare 15 minutes wandering the high street on the lookout for festive garb. In this time I saw one Santa hat, and one Christmas sweater. A poor showing by UK standards, though more appropriate here given the weather.
As is common back in the UK, cities here will have a communal Christmas tree. Wellington’s one can be seen here:
Nobody that I spoke to had anything nice to say about it. Apparently the hoardings at the bottom are not something that will be removed, my photo is the tree in it’s final form- metal scaffolding with fake greenery and baubles. There’s no song and dance around turning on Christmas lights here, again likely because it would need to take place too late in the evening to be optimal for children.
I did by chance come across another large tree in the Central Business District (CBD):
I sent a picture of it to a local friend who responded with something along the lines of “of course the rich people get a nicer tree than the rest of us”. Signs of Christmas could also be spotted in the CBD in the form of chalked climate protest signs outside of the Todd Tower.
Whilst New Zealand may not have the fir trees that we commonly see in the UK, it does have the Pōhutukawa- also known as the New Zealand Christmas Tree2 due to its brilliant red flours flourishing towards the end of December.
Unfortunately, I did not see any with decorations. Perhaps their bright red flowers are decoration enough?
Another thing that was very conspicuous for me was the lack of Christmas music. I’ve grown used to seemingly every single shop blasting Christmas tunes at me. When my flight landed into Auckland, Last Christmas by Wham started playing (another year, another Whamageddon loss). I don’t believe that I heard another Christmas song until I attended a Christmas pub quiz, which had a Christmas music round. Generally the music in the streets were the type of classic rock music which you might hear in a beer garden; probably because it is indeed summer and therefore peak beer garden season.
The people that I have spent time with in Wellington have consistently been pretty bemused by my obsession with spotting Christmas regalia. I went for lunch with a friend who told me that the only Christmas music she had heard had been a saxophonist in the street who could somehow still be heard in her seventh floor office. He had apparently been playing the same three songs on loop all morning. Her colleagues were offering each other increasing amounts of money to ask the player to move on; the current offer stood at $20, but no-one had taken it yet. When I walked past the saxophonist after lunch, he was playing a slightly out of tune rendition of Happy Birthday.
In general, the majority of the Christmas imagery I have seen in Wellington is down to imported culture. Products are purchased from companies which are producing for Western cultures which strongly associate Christmas with the winter season. When I looked at locally made products, they tended to align more strongly with local symbols and Christmas as a summer event. Perhaps because many Christmas practices are so tailored for winter, it gives the impression that Christmas is less important here; it’s hard to wear an ugly Christmas sweater in the summer, and Christmas lights would be unseen due to the long bright days.
A lack of Christmas decorations could also be a symptom of the economic downturn in Wellington. Everyone I spoke to was keep to tell me about how the local government cut massive amounts of jobs in the area. One person told me that when her company opened up recruitment, they would receive 150+ applications for every position. A quick online search reveals that 11.6% of all jobs have been cut in Wellington within the past year3. I found a sole Christmas shop on Google Maps within the city centre, but found only an empty unit for rent when I attempted to visit it. Perhaps with economic downturn this great it’s hard to get into the festive mood, sunny weather be damned.
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