Kylah McVerry and youngsters Mila McVerry (left) and Laya Virk
Te Awamutu is getting ready to roll out the tinsel once again, but and behind the festive magic is a small army of volunteers working hard to bring Saturday’s Christmas parade to life.
This year’s town centre parade is built around the theme of Christmas movies, challenging entrants as they design and build their floats.
One of the entries comes from Bayley McOnie and her team at Impressions Childcare, who have spent the past eight weeks planning to make sure their float captures the theme perfectly.
Inspired by the movie The Polar Express, the team has transformed a truck into a train nicknamed the Impressions Express with plans for all children and staff to dress in pyjamas.
“Obviously, The Polar Express is an iconic movie. We’ve really unpacked the key themes, and we’re trying to be as authentic as possible,” McOnie says. “We were trawling through the list of Christmas movies and trying to find something we’d be able to manage with a whole lot of little people, and we landed on The Polar Express.”
Being based in Pirongia adds an extra layer of logistics. The team will do a practice run on Wednesday to assemble the float, since it’s not possible to drive the truck fully decorated into Te Awamutu.
“It’s a bit of a puzzle at the moment, but it’s all coming together day by day,” McOnie says.
This isn’t the team’s first parade. They participated in a float pre-Covid but with a recent business rebrand, McOnie says this year is also about showcasing their new logos and designs to the community. “It’s sort of our comeback to the parade,” she adds.
For McOnie, the highlight of the day is seeing the community come together.
“We are quite a decent-sized childcare centre and we have lots of families who travel to us from Te Awamutu and Kihikihi. Sharing the Christmas magic and seeing our people in the crowd, and connecting with that wider community, is really special,” she says.
The parade will start at 11am.
- Aysha Finlay is a Wintec journalism student.
Kylah McVerry and youngsters Mila McVerry (left) and Laya Virk paint the letters to go on the bath sides of the float.
