While some grandparents make the beds in the spare room or whip up a pavlova before family came to stay, Thana na Nagara gets out the flag with his family crest.
He had it made by a flag maker in Dunedin and says it is probably the only one like it in the world. Thana flies the lotus flag when family came to stay.
He lives at Olive Tree Village in Palmerston North and his neighbours enjoy watching his flagpole daily to see which of his flags he is flying.
Thana has 20 flags from the expected New Zealand, All Blacks and silver fern ones to the unexpected. One of those is the Hundertwasser green-and-white koru flag. It was designed by Austrian painter and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who gifted it to New Zealand in 1983. He proposed it as a secondary flag for New Zealand.
As a nod to his youngest daughter's place of residence, Thana has the striking bear flag - the official flag of California.