A rave review of the big tree with pretty lights.

As everyone with a family they care to spend time with will say, it’s the people that make Christmas. And as everyone with a family they’d rather avoid will tell you, it’s the people that make you hate Christmas. It’s true. People – usually your immediate family – can make or break Christmas. And so it can be expected that an expensive, massive Christmas tree in downtown Auckland will not be to everyone’s taste. But I genuinely believe it could be.

Hear me out: a city is, in my opinion, only a real city if it can swallow up a person. By that I mean, a person alone (or lonely, or both) should be in a city and feel part of the flow of it. They should feel like there are things in the city just for them, no matter their age or means.

I spent Saturday afternoon at a city-fringe community woodworking space. It’s a space where people who live in apartments or without garages, and who don’t have the resources for dozens of expensive tools, can still scratch their DIY creative itch. I love it. Every time I spend half a day there I can actually feel my heart rate slowing and my brain unrotting.

This past Saturday, drilling holes off-centre was only the beginning of my activities. At 6.30pm, I wandered out of the basement workshop and into a grey but tepid evening, walked 100 metres up the road to the nearest bus stop on Ponsonby Road, and caught the bus to Britomart. I had negative funds on both the Hop cards in my wallet, which on any other weekend would have meant a miserable walk along K Road trying to find the rare dairy that does Hop card top-ups (because the app was broken again, of course, and also it takes an hour for money to load online).

But not this weekend. This weekend I tapped on with my bank card. A simple action that genuinely made my evening 20% better because I never thought it would be possible in Auckland, where regular public transport at all is still a work in progress. I tapped on with my bank card, sat down and thought, “wow, a real city”.

As the bus made its way down Queen Street, I watched as the cars thinned out and soon it was almost entirely pedestrians. Lots and lots of pedestrians. Cyclists, skateboarders and e-scooters zoomed by in their designated lanes and I thought, “wow, a real city”.

In Te Komititanga, at the bottom of Queen Street, it’s clear that this is where the heart of the new city will be. Previously a bland thoroughfare for those spilling out of Britomart Station, Te Komititanga is starting to reveal its potential. A giant bauble the size of a house took up the entrance to the square. Next to it was a smaller bauble and a wrapped present. Young families were posing and taking pictures in front of them.

At the other end of the square was a stage, where Anika Moa and Tami Nielson would put on a free concert for the hundreds (maybe a thousand) Aucklanders who’d gathered. And in the middle of it all was the tree. A huge, 18-metre tall Christmas tree with 2,000 baubles all over it and 10,000 LED lights. A tree that, on paper, could look like a frivolous use of a million dollars – paid for by nearby businesses and a city centre targeted rate – during a recession.

Without the lights turned on, the tree looked OK. It was a good use of the space downtown and matched well with the fairy lights of Commercial Bay. While waiting for the official lighting at 8.30pm, I wandered up to the foodcourt and had dinner. It was bustling, filled with people of all ages who had either just finished shopping, were waiting for the tree moment, or both. Most of the shops in the mall were already closed, but with Christmas shopping hours soon to begin, I could imagine it being that busy every night until Christmas.

At eight o’clock I walked back out into the square to hear Tami Nielsen sing ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’. Immediately, all the kids in the crowd started dancing. Small bodies on the shoulders of bigger bodies were bopping and spinning. I stood silently and felt myself welling up watching at a bunch of strangers having a nice time.

When it got just dark enough, the tree lit up. At first, only a small portion of it turned on and I shrivelled up inside thinking that was it. Then a moment later it burst into rainbow light and everyone oohed and aahed and held their phones up to capture it. What’s not to love about a giant tree filled with pretty lights? People took photos and ate ice creams and some woman had a massive bag of popcorn that I suddenly craved. Next year, I’m sure they’ll add food carts selling hot chocolates and candy canes to the lighting festivities because that’s really all it was missing.

As people started trickling away with their sleepy children, I turned back to look at the tree again. I would soon join hundreds of others in the walk back up Queen Street, stopping at a surprisingly bustling late night convenience store for a little treat before busing home. But for that moment, I was simply looking at the pretty lights on the massive Christmas tree and enjoying the sounds of other people doing the same.

For the first time in what felt like years, I was alone in the city and the city was alive.