Biggest yet Christmas Tractors Nenagh parade

By now a much-anticipated event on the national festive calendar, the Christmas Tractors Nenagh parade makes a very welcome return again this year.

This one will be even bigger and better than before with a whole host of new additions planned. The build-up began last Saturday when Santa’s Post Box was installed outside Edel’s Boutique on Kenyon St. Children are invited to write letters to Santa and post them to the North Pole – just put the letter in an envelope enclosing a stamped envelope with your home address on it, and you can be sure to receive a reply in your letterbox before Christmas.

The post box will remain in situ right up to the main event, the Christmas Tractors Nenagh parade, which this year will take place on Sunday, December 18.

The popular Polar Express train will be making its rounds of the town on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons of December 17-18. Inspired by the Disney movie, the Polar Express will add to the excitement in Nenagh in the leadup to Christmas and hopefully draw plenty of visitors into town. The organisers of Christmas Tractors Nenagh want this year’s event to really promote Nenagh as a place to visit and as a shopping town with its excellent array of shops, cafés, pubs, restaurants and accommodation. Local traders are very much behind the event, as it serves to support the Shop Local campaign at Christmas.

PARADE OF LIGHTS

The Christmas Tractors Nenagh event has certainly cast the town and its hinterland in a positive light. Attracting people to Nenagh from all over Ireland, the novel parade of illuminated agricultural machinery has featured on RTÉ television, and this year the organisers have had contact from people in England wanting to come to Nenagh to see the parade.

And there is an exceptional lineup of entertainment for everyone to look forward to, centring of course on the parade itself, which will commence after dark on Sunday December 18. It will feature around 30 tractors altogether, among them the marvellous ‘Flying Snowman’, and a new creation called the ‘Christmas Cracker’ – a mobile Santa workshop replete with elves making toys.

A series of cartoon characters – around 20 in all – will be going around on Saturday as well as on the day of the parade. Look out for the likes of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the Minions, Peppa Pig and LOL Doll.

Another new addition will be a Christmas market at the bottom of Kenyon St at Teach an Léinn. It will open at 10am on Sunday and feature stalls selling all sorts of festive fare, such as floral arrangements and holly wreaths.

Furthermore, there will be children’s amusements based at the Kenyon St Car Park throughout the day on Sunday.

A special Christmas Tractors Nenagh shop will be set up on Pearse St (Cici’s) and it will be open on Saturday and Sunday, December 17 and 18. Here you can buy wonderful Christmas Tractors Nenagh merchandise including woolly hats and colouring packs of pencils for kids.

You can also buy tickets to enter a monster raffle with dozens of great prizes to be won, including an abundance of timber, a remote-control jeep, hampers, vouchers, and more. Tickets will be on sale all-day Sunday.

And it doesn’t end there. Many of the Christmas tractors will go on an extended tour around Nenagh’s nursing homes and the hospital on Monday, December 19, bringing further festive cheer to those unable to attend the parade.

SUPPORTING BILLY GOULDING AND THE A-TEAM

This year the Christmas Tractors Nenagh event is being held to raise funds for ‘Billy’s Recovery Story’ and The A-Team. Billy Goulding is a local boy who, at the age of 2, went from being a healthy child to being paralysed from the neck down due to a virus called transverse myelitis. Doctors gave the Goulding family very little hope for his future, but with sheer determination, hard work and positivity, Billy's future is looking a lot brighter. Thanks to Christmas Tractors Nenagh, all the supporters and the public, the family has been able to avail of advanced technology, which could not have happened if it were not for the ongoing fundraising.

Proceeds will also be shared with the Nenagh-based A-Team youth club for the local autistic community. The vision of the A-Team is to create an autism-positive community in North Tipperary with regular youth club activities; to secure a permanent A-Team youth club building, and to support parents of children and young people with autism.

Note that many of Nenagh’s streets will be closed to traffic from late afternoon on Sunday, December 18. The parade is due to begin at 6pm. Visit the Christmas Tractors Nenagh Facebook page for further details and updates, including a map of the parade route.