KEY POINTS:
It's all aboard Santa's express for all those catching Stagecoach buses in Auckland on Christmas Day.
Unless it's on Kilifi Tuipulotu's bus, where the fleet's traditional free Christmas rides will - in a slight variation of the seasonal theme - be courtesy of "Jester Claus".
"That's because I can't fit the Santa hats on my head," the large, affable driver said yesterday about his improvised headgear, which he dusts off each December to get his passengers into the Yuletide mood.
"And I am a jester - I'm Jester Claus and this hat gets all the smiles."
Mr Tuipulotu, an 11-year Stagecoach veteran, is one of several hundred drivers who have volunteered for work on Christmas Day to ferry thousands of Aucklanders around the region free on a Sunday timetable.
The freebies are a tradition Stagecoach owner Infratil resolved to continue after buying the bus fleet last year, and which it will extend this Christmas to its new North Star brand of services around Auckland's northern suburbs and the Hibiscus Coast.
Customer services and marketing manager Steve Wade said the company had no hesitation in deciding to keep it going as an end-of-year thank-you gesture to its customers.
Although this is his first New Zealand summer after arriving from Britain, where he said buses did not run on Christmas Day, he understood about 20,000 people took free rides last year and expected routes between the city and beaches to be well patronised.
Mr Tuipulotu said the free buses were popular with family groups, and working on Christmas Day was a pleasure, especially as not having to collect fares made it easy for the drivers to join in the festive mood.
Despite his jester's hat, he admitted to feeling a lot like Santa in giving away free rides - not to mention receiving sweets and other Christmas snacks in return.
He especially loves helping to reunite people at Christmas, such as an elderly woman who can no longer drive but travels by bus from Orewa to Papakura to visit her brother and collects her sister from Glen Innes on the way.
Although driving duties will take him away from his wife and four children, his bus route will at least let him spend his lunch break with them.
