A Look Back At 80 Years of The Christmas Pageant

Monday 8th October, 2012

Yesterday Tony and I went into the city to check out the Pageant display.  This year on November 10th,  it will be the Christmas Pageants 80th Anniversary.  

Back in 1933 it was known as the Children's Christmas Pageant.  Then it became known as John Martin's Christmas Pageant for over 50 years. In 1996 the combined Credit Unions began their sponsorship of the Pageant and still do to this day.  There were no Pageants during WWII (1941 - 1944).

Nimble was in the original Pageant of 1933

More than 300,000 people line the streets of Adelaide as the Pageant makes it way along the 3.3 kilometre route to the Magic Cave where Father Christmas takes up residence until Christmas Eve.

To celebrate 80 years the Pageant organisers brought some of the floats and characters into the city so that the public could get up close to have a look at them.  One thing I liked was talking to sculptor David Blight.  He sculpts, out of polystyrene foam, the characters and animals that are on the floats.  These are then painted or have fur attached,  and some are made into moving parts.  He has been doing this job since 1977 and previously was employed by John Martins in the Design Department.

It was a great afternoon and we learnt things that we never knew before about the Pageant.  We were sorry that Katie wasn't with us, she would have loved it I'm sure.

Today I went out for lunch with Dianne.  We also started our Christmas shopping.  This year I don't have many to buy for.  Seeing the girls are so much older all they want is money so that they can go off and buy whatever they want.  Easy for me!