Author(s): Alison Clarke

NZ Non Fiction

In this entertaining and lively book Alison Clarke shows how colonial settlers from the northern hemisphere adapted the age-old festivals of Christmas, New Year and Easter to a new world of upside-down seasons, unfamiliar vegetation and cultural diversity. They decorated their homes with pohutukawa at Christmas and ate green peas and new potatoes; they went to the races at New Year and on hunting trips at Easter. But they still ate plum pudding on 25 December, went first footing at New Year and observed Easter with traditional services and hot cross buns. Catholics and Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians had different priorities in celebrating Christian festivals, and the friction between those who wanted a day off to picnic and those who wanted to worship at church was integral to the development of these holidays in New Zealand. Similarly, we owe many of our festive customs to the differences between the English, Irish and Scottish ways of celebrating their holidays.

Holiday Seasons reminds us that along with vision, dedication and a capacity for hard work our forebears also brought jollity and frivolity.

First published March 2007.


Alison Clarke explores with relish the evolution of the Kiwi holiday from grand Victorian picnics to the beach barbie. - Chris Moore, The Press


a worthwhile work that colours New Zealand colonial life in those early decades. . . She illustrates with a grand collection of photographs and sketches of holiday activities more than 100 years ago - Roy Burke, Waikato Times


There's a vein of ironic humour running through this entertaining social history, encouraged by the author's eye for detail, including the denominational differences which marked Christmas celebrations in Godzone (to worship or to picnic?) for more than a century. - Chris Moore, The Press

First published March 2007.