Christmas In The Park 2005

Last Saturday night flatmate Dave and I caught the bus to the Auckland Domain for this year’s Christmas In The Park concert.

This is only the second one of these that I’ve been to, (last year's one here) as where I come from, it’s fairly unheard of to do anything outdoors this close to Christmas, unless of course you’re Santa. In fact you have to wonder just what kind of crazy trip the guy was on when he nominated one of the coldest/hottest days of the year as the one on which he wanted to annually head outside and lug the world’s, yes, the entire world’s Christmas presents across 24,859.82 miles, before repeatedly repeating it at a slightly different longitude again and again until the entire surface of the planet has been covered in one freezing/sweltering 24-hour dash.

Just what on Earth is his angle? Oh that’s right - all of them.

Just to add petrol to the whole suspicious conspiracy-theory, tonight Dave and I were reliving Saturday’s fun by watching the whole concert again on TV3, when suddenly, somewhere between Fast Crew and a surely jet-lagged Crazy Frog (who after all that travelling to get here was cruelly cut-off in his first verse), we spotted Santa. He was dancing and frolicking on stage along with all the other alphabet-list celebrities, but the TV director, throughout the segment we watched, constantly kept him safely hidden in long-shot. Petra Bagust even interviewed Mrs Claus at one point (controversial news for those of you outside New Zealand – she’s a Māori), but the man himself’s features determinedly remained a fuzzy mystery.

A strange way to treat your show’s biggest celebrity.