Hay's procession, Christchurch

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

Christmas parades were begun by department stores in the 1930s as a way to announce the arrival of Santa Claus at their store. The parades became increasingly elaborate, with Santa accompanied by fairies, clowns and characters from nursery rhymes. Hay’s department store, a Christchurch institution for fifty years, began their parades in 1947. These were often photographed, though only rarely as stereo images for a View-Master disc like these shots.