July To The World!

18 years ago, in the UK, I presented a jokey Chrstmas Day radio show entitled The Christmas Day Summer Special. We had people doing lots of summery outdoor things, apparently oblivious to the bitterness of winter. That was the joke.

Years later I moved to the southern hemisphere and cribbed clips of this for use on my radio demo tape, chuckling to myself that, in a climate where Christmas was reliably hot, it might sound genuine.

Last weekend however, New Zealand played the same joke right back at me.


Local joy-filled dessert shop - Quirk Dessert - were running what they called a 'Midwinter Christmas' promotion, despite it being darkest July. After all, everyone here knows that Christmas is never cold. Confused yet?

Well, you'll never guess what Quirk's owner (and friend from church) Maree had Random Dave and myself doing all Saturday morning…


Never enter this place and tell them that you feel like a pudding.

For a whole hour - dressed as Christmas puddings - Dave and I marched up and down Picton Street, spying punters who looked like potential customers, and offering our leaflets to them. In I think every instance we were greeted with smiles!

"We are Christmas puddings, and we are available to be eaten at Quirk Dessert on the corner of Wellington Street - happy Christmas!!!"


When we had exhausted the flyers, we spent the next hour standing outside the front doing whatever we could think of to attract even more attention to ourselves. Dancing, fighting, playing tennis… we did some of our best material out there. Drivers honked us, the cops kept their distance, and only one person called us freaks, but that was only the local pastor, no doubt appalled at Howick's spiralling respect for the actual religious festival. Christmas is hardly about joy, dammit.

Presently, it was time to return inside from the unChristmassy cold, change back into our civvies, and seriously reduce our waistlines. (ironic in a café that only sells desserts) I think employee Dave had some actual serving to do (I was just a volunteer), so I wished him and Maree well, and headed out to the newly renamed Countdown to get in some shopping of my own.

Along the way, I noticed that something had changed. The people who I was passing in the street. Nothing was wrong exactly, but something was missing from their countenances.

As I approached, none of them were breaking into a smile any more.

:(