Go on Dunedin, you can inspire the magical spirit
I was so happy, having gone on a late shopping trip, to see the Christmas lights in the South Dunedin shops.
Growing up in New Plymouth and the annual visit to the Light Festival, I have struggled with living in Christmas Grinch city.
I’m thinking of the lack of city lighting, decorations, and activities.
It’s been great to be more aware of Christmas events and markets, from museum events to picnics and carols.
I don’t know if there is a pantomime; I’d love a big family Christmas pantomime tradition.
However, if an alien landed in Dunedin’s centre I’m not sure, other than the tree, that it would know it was a time of celebration.
I’m a Christian so Christmas centres around celebrating Jesus, God’s birth.
There are other celebrations, both religious e.g. Bodhi Day (Buddhists) and Hanukkah (Jews), and cultural, e.g. Yule (Norse festival and winter solstice) and Kwanzaa (African American) and, of course, with Dunedin’s Scottish heritage, Hogmanay.
I think lights and decorations by the city are important harbingers of Christmas and inspire the magical spirit.
It doesn’t have to be massively expensive, we have unused Christmas banners and decorations; use what we have and add a bit each year.
Follow South Dunedin’s lead and have a competition between shops, an Octagon gingerbread house competition or have pop-up music and elves or . . . there are lots of people who spread the "good cheer".
Maybe more ugly T-shirts and wearing of reindeer antlers or lighting up cars and houses would reverse the trend of violence toward each other.
I applaud South Dunedin and ask the city council to lead from the front and make Dunedin the fun capital at Christmas time.
Thanks to all who help give us a very Meri Kirihimete.
Walk a mile
I wonder whether Joyce Yee-Murdoch (Letters, 23.12.24) has heard the saying, "You can’t really understand another person’s experience until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes." If she has, I don’t think she has comprehended it, not just with her mind but at the heart level.
The comparison she makes with successful immigrants is not valid. How would we, white New Zealanders, feel if our country were invaded by a foreign power and we lost our language, culture, and sense of identity?
Bring back train
Once more, there are tourists wandering around Port Chalmers, wanting to get into town, but buses all full, and no train. What a welcome. Not.
A while back, a Dunedin Railways train would roll right out on to the wharf, mere metres from the ship, and whisk hundreds of them away to the delights of Dunedin city, or the hinterland of the Taieri, to the satisfaction of all.
Can someone knock a few heads together, and get the train back? A win-win, surely. Do the right thing for the city, chaps.
Beware using meningococcal
I was alarmed by the suggestion today (ODT, 24.12.24) that students should be encouraged to deliberately infect themselves with meningococcus.
We see over and over in the media the misuse of the word "meningococcal" as a noun. It is not. The error is repeated in the second paragraph where "meningococcal" is again used as a noun.
Your headline therefore seems to encourage a dangerous practice of applying a "meningococcal jab" which can only mean a jab of meningococcus. The meningitis vaccine does not contain meningococcus itself, but only proteins and other subunits of the bacterium.
No room
A Christmas extension: for Jesus and his parents, there was no room at the inn; for Palestinian families in Gaza, there is no room in the whole land.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
