The Christmas Pageant is a big thing in Adelaide. If you can't get there, you can watch it on TV (this year it is apparently being broadcast nationally for the first time), but any parent worth their salt will be there with their excited kiddies. Jostling for the best spot close to the blue line (you can't be over the blue line) is an Adelaide tradition. Grandparents head in to the city early and place their chairs and blankets to save a spot, so that parents can bring the kids in later. Offices on the route are hot property because employees can bring their kids in to watch from windows or balconies. Trucks are parked early and space on the tray is a big treat because you can get a great vantage point.
Because hundreds of thousands of spectators line the streets each year, car parking is at a premium. Whole streets of the city are closed off for the pageant.
When I grew up the pageant was already an institution. I even owned a book "Tisi and the pageant" that told a story about a country kid (just like me) visiting the pageant.
The pageant was started in 1933 by Sir Edward Hayward, who owned John Martins department store. In the middle of the depression the 'Childrens' Christmas Parade' apparently drew 200,000 spectators to watch the 8 floats and 3 bands walk by. It was a knock over success story. The following year Father Christmas went from the pageant to the magic cave for the first time. I consider this to be one of the biggest marketing coups in Adelaide. Every kid knew that the real Father Christmas lived in the magic cave in John Martins. You could go there to see yourself looking fat, skinny and tall in the shaped mirrors, or to ride on Nipper and Nimble. You could sit on Santa's lap, and of course you could buy your toys there.
John Martins no longer exists, and the pageant is now a government thing, called the Credit Union Christmas Pageant-sponsored by a group of our credit unions and a wonderful gift back to the Adelaide Community. It still has floats (I think there are over 60 this year), clowns, marching bands, bagpipes (hello Donna), Nipper and Nimble and Father Christmas.
In Adelaide I think every little girl wanted to be the one who got to ride on Nipper or Nimble in the pageant. They dressed in pretty clothes and waved beautifully and always looked happy. The closest I ever got was watching someone else ride them at the Magic Cave.
I've never seen the finale in person, when Father Christmas leaves his sleigh float with the pageant queen and they walk triumphantly into the Magic Cave. It was always too crowded on North Tce. It is enough to know that it happens. And I think that David Jones (where the Magic Cave now exists) win in many ways. They don't have to fund the pageant, but every kid in Adelaide still knows that that is where the real Father Christmas is.
According to long standing Adelaide tradition the second Saturday of November has arrived, Father Christams has come to town, and you can now put up your Christmas tree.
