Santa Parade Gathers 100,000 People
Spectacular floats, popular characters and a buzz of Christmas acclamation ushered in the 2011 Christchurch Santa Parade putting smiles on thousands of children's faces. The parade, held on Sunday 4 December marked the events 64th year. While taking a different route on Riccarton Road, the parade was equally as thrilling, as at least 100,000 of Christchurch's population lined the streets and shared in the festivities. The events of the past 12 months have meant several changes in and around Christchurch, including the famous CBD route of the Santa Parade. With funding harder to find this year, it did not stop the organizer to ensure this iconic event was still on the calendar for 2011. Fo Guang Shan (FGS) NZ has also supported in preparing free cold drinking water to quench the thirst of the spectators.
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The parade started at 2pm sharp not only with generous sponsors represented by animated characters, cartoon characters, fairy tales themes and spectacular floats that had children and adults cheering out loud, it also featured New Zealand’s famous actress Erin Simpson bringing hype to the parade. Different cultural groups from various countries like the Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Philippines, Cambodian, Russian, Netherlands and many more communities bring out their cultural themes in this parade. Lion dance, dragon dance, participants of the parade wearing their cultural uniforms and even costume from blessing rituals of the Taiwan community were in the parade. Last but not least, the most important character for the day, no other than SANTA CLAUSE came into the parade with cheers, applauses and a great warm feeling in the hearts of the spectators.
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The crowd left in a happy and peaceful way after the parade with a lot of them thanking the venerables and volunteers from FGS and BLIA for supporting this important event of Canterbury. Organizers were also grateful with the help and thanked the support given to them. Each and everyone from the FGS and BLIA were also gratified to not just in having a chance in participating this meaningful event, but also a chance in practicing the spirit of “giving". This successful Santa Parade undoubtedly gave great memories in this summer of 2011.