Bay of Plenty’s Christmas Day workers are a varied bunch

Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park manager Mark Hales is also a Christmas veteran, and has worked on Christmas Day for the past 18 years. Photo / Mead Norton

Brent Mountfort celebrates Christmas like most Kiwis - glazed ham, a bit of lamb and far too much pudding.

The difference is, for the past 15 years Mountfort hasn’t woken up to unwrap his presents first thing on Christmas Day - he wakes up to milk his cows, move the odd flock of sheep and make sure all his animals are fed and happy.

But Mountford doesn’t mind it, in fact, he likes to get out on the farm after lunch to burn off additional festive calories.

“But I always make sure I have time to spend time with family though because that’s important,” he said.

Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers provincial president Brent Mountford.

His family often help out to lighten his load, and this year they celebrated Christmas early because his two children were heading overseas for the holidays.

“We all sheared the sheep and then had Christmas after that but as you can imagine they were all knackered,” Mountford said.

Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park manager Mark Hales has worked on Christmas Day for the past 18 years.

Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park manager Mark Hales. Photo / Mead Norton

-He has stepped back in recent years though, only being oncall from 8am to 11am and letting security staff take over for the rest of the day.

His family come to the park for Christmas lunch, making it easy to balance festivities as he lives on-site.

But it is not common for the campground to be busy this time of year, with only about 15 people checking in.

Operations manager Robyn van den Hurk has worked the last six Christmases at the Rotorua Heritage Farm and will be working alongside at least four other staff to keep the farm open to the public.

Robyn van den Hurk, operations manager for Heritage Farm and the 3D trick art gallery photographed in 2021. Photo / Andrew Warner

The Farm Tour and 3D Trick Art Gallery will be open to all ages, with the two farm tours running at 11am and 1.30pm “where you can feed and touch the animals”, said van den Hurk.

They stay open due to the demand, with about 300 Aucklanders visiting the Christmas weekend compared to 60 on other weekends.

She said it’s because there aren’t many places open on Christmas Day and after the festivities, families wanted to “get out and do something”.

Van den Hurk said it was “quite exciting to see everyone in a good mood and the kids always have big smiles”.

Surf Life Saving New Zealand’s eastern region lifesaving manager Chaz Gibbons-Campbell has worked for the past six Christmases but this year is only on-call so he can spend quality time with his newborn baby.

Eastern Region surf lifesaving manager Chaz Gibbons-Campbell. Photo / Mead Norton

He is less likely to be called out this year given it is forecast to rain.

Usually, Gibbons-Campbell has the family lunch at the beach so he is close by if anything happens.

More than 100 lifeguards will be stationed on Christmas Day across the Eastern region, which includes Bay of Plenty, Coromandel and Gisborne.

Tauranga Hospital orderley Sue Le Seelleur has been on duty most Christmases since she started working there 10 years ago.

“I choose to work over Christmas so that others in the team can spend time with their families and get a well-earned break,” she said.

The Tauranga City Council’s contact centre’s senior technical lead Julie Saies has worked five out of 10 Christmases since her employment with the council began.

Tauranga City Council's contact centre's senior technical lead Julie Saies.

The contact centre staff made sure to celebrate the big day - with plenty of food, dressing up and the song Snoopy’s Christmas on repeat - and afterwards Saies has a barbecue dinner with family.

Her day included tending to issues such as water leaks, parking issues and animal control.

“TCC is like my family and because of that, I don’t feel I am missing out because I get to help keep our city running and safe behind the scenes.”

Ange Sloan, owner of the clothing brand Sloan, does not work on Christmas Day but instead hosts an “orphans’ Christmas“ open to the public.

Ange Sloan runs an orphan's Christmas every year from her home.

She started the annual event five years ago after she experienced a Christmas alone herself when she was 21.

“When I moved to Australia, my boss put on an orphan’s Christmas with a private chef - it was the best time ever,” said Sloan.

She said the holiday period was a hard time for people who did not feel safe around their family.

“It’s so important to give a space for people that just don’t have a normal experience of Christmas.”

Sloan spent the morning with family then opened her home from lunchtime, welcoming people to spend the night there if they wanted.

Sloan said the feeling of making people feel welcome “was the best thing”, as well as seeing people become more comfortable throughout the day.

St George’s Anglican Church has three events on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and has been participating in community-wide Christmas events for the past 10 years.

On December 24, the Christmas Eve Children’s Service will run from 7pm to 8pm.

“Some years we sing carols, some years plays and sometimes we’ve decorated the Christmas tree,” said Rev John Hebenton, vicar of the church.

Midnight mass starts at 11pm with carols and at 11.30pm the communion service will take place, finishing about 1am Christmas morning.

The “family-friendly” Family Eucharist event runs from 9am to 10am and includes “readings about the Christmas stories, carols, and activities for all who attend”.

Harriet Laughton is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty.