New Vista Rest Home residents Lisbeth Thomas, Merle Greener and Fay Shaw are looking forward to Christmas Day. Photo / Bevan Conley
New Vista Rest Home residents Lisbeth Thomas, Merle Greener and Fay Shaw are looking forward to Christmas Day. Photo / Bevan Conley
Organisations across Whanganui are preparing to celebrate the festive season in their own way. But what's on the menu for the special day? Ethan Griffiths reports.
At New Vista Rest Home on Harrison St, residents have spent the last week getting stuck into Christmas activities, including making and putting updecorations, singing Christmas carols and visiting the Christmas grotto in Marton.
On Christmas Day around 50 residents and 10 staff will celebrate the day with bubbles and a traditional Christmas lunch with a selection of ham, chicken and lamb, as well as Christmas cake and fruit mince pies.
According to a spokesperson at the rest home, the residents look forward to the day.
"There's the lead up with the Christmas activities and things, so the day is really special."
Over at Whanganui Hospital, patients will be treated to a meal more homely than ever.
Patients will have a choice of cooked ham with cranberry sauce and gravy, roast chicken breast with stuffing and gravy, or a spinach and feta filo parcel. These will all be served with roast or mashed potato, roast pumpkin, and garden peas.
For pudding, the choices are plum pudding with custard, chocolate mint mousse with cream, or fruit salad and ice cream.
The evening meal will be either a chicken salad plate, ham and mustard sandwich, or vegetable cannelloni with a side salad. Breads and spreads will also be served. Dessert will be a tropical coconut mango cream creation.
Sean Conroy, the operations director for Compass, the company contracted to provide hospital meals, says that the kitchen works hard to put on a good spread.
"The festive season is a special time and we know it must be difficult for people staying in hospital to be away from their home, whānau, and friends at this time of year," Conroy said.
"That's why our team has put a great deal of thought into creating a menu for patients that will taste and feel like what they might expect to get at home."
Depending on patient numbers, Compass is likely to serve, at each mealtime, around 100 meals at Whanganui Hospital.
Meanwhile, at Whanganui Prison, around 400 inmates will be served a "nutritious and basic meal" to mark the occasion, with all 17 prisons nationwide dishing up the same meal.
Inmates at Whanganui Prison will mark Christmas with a special meal. Photo / Mark Mitchell
According to the Corrections National Commissioner Rachel Leota, the meal will be standard prison food, with two mince tarts added to the menu to mark the occasion.
"Our Christmas lunch is the same at all of the 17 prisons we manage nationwide and is a similar meal to what has been provided on Christmas day for many years," Leota said.
"It consists of roast chicken and vegetables, a standard meal from our menu. Dinner will be sandwiches, with the addition of two fruit mince tarts to mark the day."
A vegetarian option of crumbed spinach and pumpkin patties is available for Christmas lunch, while vegetarian sandwiches are available for dinner.
Elsewhere around the prison, the day will be slightly different than normal, with prisoners engaging in sports and other activities during the day.
