carols by candlelight

I'm such a sentimental sucker for Christmas, especially the carols (as my family can attest)! They evoke such good memories. So on Friday night, I couldn't resist taking Victoria and our five-year-old niece Charlotte to Carols by Candlelight at Western Park in Ponsonby. We had a really lovely evening singing along to the carols played by a ska-styled band, even though we didn't get to use our (free) candles due to the complete lack of darkness. Charlotte was only intermittently interested, and spent much of the time colouring in the pictures of Santa we were given on the way in. We did get her singing along to a couple of carols she knew. Well done Auckland City Council for organising such a great event. It was a much better (and more relaxing) experience than and Christmas in the Park I've been to.
Once the band had launched into a couple of covers (including some pretty decent beatboxing by the lead singer), we headed over to Franklin Road to look at the lights. Lots of oohing and aahing later, we found ourselves at Victoria Park in front of the big Telecom Christmas tree. By this time it was properly dark, and the tree looked very impressive flashing its lights in a multitude of patterns. We lay down on the bean bags provided underneath the huge 'tree' and watched the lights until my eyes went weird, then I helped Charlotte leave a voicemail message for Santa on one of the phone boxes at the base. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the whole Telecom tree experience was really pleasant - no hard sell, just a company giving a bit of festive cheer to the community. If I was an even more hardened cynic, I could say that if they could afford such a grand gesture, they could obviously afford to reduce their prices, but it's Christmas...
It was 10 pm before we returned Charlotte to her parents and we were all fading pretty fast. Hopefully another positive Christmas memory for her.