Tawa's 2006 Christmas Parade took place on Saturday, December 2nd, on a pleasant morning at the start of summer. It wasn't exactly hot (the temperature at 9am was 12 degrees and, at midday, around 15 degrees), but at least the sun was shining brightly despite a rather mediocre forecast.

For the first time in at least seven years, I wasn't able to photograph the parade as it went by. On this occasion I was a participant, part of the Tawa Community Board float. I still managed to take a number of shots before the parade got under way, and several more once my float reached the other end. Meantime my teenage daughter took a whole bunch as a spectator on the Main Road. Both lots of photos of the parade itself are interspersed below - in the order in which the procession went by.

- Malcolm Sparrow