Raetihi Christmas Carnival 2024
Raetihi Christmas Carinval 2024 was a fantastic and immensely fulfilling annual event for our community. Behind the scenes, our little team put in a lot of effort to make this community event something truly unique, with Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle being our theme. We are grateful to our sponsors who provide prizes and event setups, as well as our local supporters who contribute to our event setups and packdown.
We had a record number of vendors this year, both new and returning. Some of our food vendors had reportedly sold out and some nearly, while our non-food stallholders experienced high sales and inquiries. There were some initial issues with the newly established village market, but there is no doubt that this area can be improved. The winners of stallholder prizes will be posted very soon with photos. But congratulations to all our winners.
Every year, our community looks forward to the Christmas Parade, which features noise, horses, the best country random surprise floats, schools, emergency teams, and routine transportation firms. The large guy at the end of the parade is always the surprise. Photos of the float competition winners will be uploaded soon.
The music, spinning genie, needle in a haystack, Santa Grotto, an abundance of food, fantastic non-food vendors, games for children, face painting, food trucks, a free community sausage sizzle, a survey, numerous raffles, bustling cafes, and most importantly, a beautiful sunny day added to a successful day.
Thank you to everyone who entered the new competitions. The judge commented on the outstanding creatively decorated wooden trees and the gorgeous Christmas wreaths.
Our colouring competition is always a favourite of our tamariki and is a fantastic opportunity for their talents to shine. Selecting the winners in each of the three categories thrilled the judges. Soon, the winning entries will be posted up.
On 10th December, our street decorations and lights were put together with community volunteers. We are incredibly appreciative, and on December 30th we will remove these street decorations. We will once more ask the volunteer community for assistance. Coach Cafe, Volcano Vibe, and REAP Raetihi had street light decorations this year, and we are glad that we can make this happen.
Installing these street lights and decorations took a lot of work. We kindly ask that this lovely installation be looked after by our community. If anything happens, please contact us, let us know, and we will handle the situation.
Raetihi now has permanent seating kindly donated by Vaughan Kearns from Ruapehu Sawmills in Raetihi, who also supplied new seating at the top of the Ameku walkway.
Our team would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and have safe and wonderful holidays with all your whanau and friends. We will see you all again at our next year’s event.
