Sign In / Register
Rudolph has been spotted in Silverdale with Santa’s sleigh, ahead of their debut at the Ōrewa Santa Parade this weekend.
Silverdale resident Christine Granger has built Santa a brand new sleigh this year, but isn’t giving away any clues about the location of Santa’s workshop. A talented designer, Christine also created a life-size reindeer, and six-foot snowman, all in the space of a few months.
It all started when Northern School of Performing Arts (NSPA) director Sophia Pedersen approached Christine in August to decorate Centrestage theatre’s foyer for Elf the Musical. Going above and beyond, she designed an immersive winter wonderland experience for the children’s performance. Christine said the reactions of the five to 16 year old performers when they saw her creations made all the long hours worthwhile.
Keen for the Christmas magic to live on after the musical, Christine reached out to the Ōrewa Santa Parade organisers. In previous years, Santa’s sleigh travelled from Warkworth in a gesture of community spirit between the two towns. Destination Ōrewa’s Hellen Wilkins said that Christine and Richard’s offer to loan the parade their sleigh and reindeer this year, was too good to pass up.
“We are very excited to see the children’s faces when they see not only Santa, but Rudolph as well. And of course Santa is also very pleased to be bringing his sleigh with his trusty steed in the lead this year,” Wilkins said.
Christine and her partner Richard Worker have lived on the Hibiscus Coast for 27 years and attended the Santa Parade every year since it started.
“Our youngest son, Joel, loved the grand finale, when Santa himself finally appeared. Joel is 30 years old now so it will be fun to watch his reaction to what we have created for this year’s parade,” Christine said.
Their creation involved a mammoth effort, taking more than 100 hours of work. Christine admits she poured literal blood, sweat and tears into the endeavour, but said she did it all for the love of Christmas and community.
“We will enjoy seeing the reactions of the children – after all, that is what Christmas is about and why we created Santa’s Christmas float,” Christine said.
Christine and Richard self-funded the project to give back to the community. They will remain the caretakers of Santa’s sleigh, Rudolph, and the snowman, but will continue to loan them out. Their next appearance will be at the Age Concern Christmas concert at the end of this month.
After that, Christine plans to invite Rudolph into her living room on Christmas eve, hoping for a visit from Santa.
How the magic happened
After drawing the sleigh, Christine worked with Coastbuild New Zealand’s Tim Smith who projected her design on to large sheets of wood to build the structure. Christine then spray painted the sleigh red and added a trim using pool noodles, spray painting it gold along with the runners.
“In the beginning I was going to paint ‘SNŌrewa Sleigh’ on the side but it wasn’t quite right for our Kiwi Christmas,” Christine said. Though her final touch was a spray of faux snow because Santa will be travelling from the North Pole even if he does arrive here in summer.
Richard also lent a hand in the workshop, making Christmas bells that were added to the sleigh from the reindeer’s harness.
To bring Rudolph to life, Christine collaborated with Dean Morris, from Fabrication Specialists, in Silverdale. Dean built the steel frame so Christine could shape the reindeer body with chicken wire. She then padded it with cushion filling and covered it with a faux deer rug.
“I studied images of real reindeer and also photos of existing reindeer made for other Santa sleigh parades,” Christine said, committed to transforming the frame into a realistic reindeer. She said pool noodles were the key to Rudolph’s legs.
She secured them to the frame with cable ties and shaped hooves from yet more noodles. For Rudolph’s face, she sewed on a latex deer mask.
Christine’s final touch involved more faux fur before airbrushing the reindeer to tie the whole look together.
