Teddy works on his tricks ahead of this year's Crankworx mountain biking festival. Photo / Supplied
Teddy works on his tricks ahead of this year's Crankworx mountain biking festival. Photo / Supplied
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While teddy bears all over New Zealand have been relaxing in the front windows of homes during lockdown, one Rotorua teddy has been put to work by his whānau.
Several Rotorua residents contacted the Rotorua Daily Post to say they had been thrilled by a teddy bear outside a Regent St home that has been dressed up differently every day during both last year's lockdown and the present one.
From everyday tasks such as mowing the lawns, ironing, and doing homework, to more- extravagant themes including mermaids, Star Wars characters, and freestyle mountain biking - this teddy has done it all.
After some investigation, it was discovered the teddy in question belongs to Rotorua businessman and tourism operator Tak Mutu along with his partner and 5-year-old daughter.
Mutu said the dressups began during the initial "teddy bear hunt" in lockdown last year and were all about putting smiles on faces.
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"Every time we've been at alert level 4, we've dressed up teddy," he said.
"Last year during lockdown, my daughter was a little 5-year-old and we thought the teddy bear hunts were an awesome idea so we wanted to get in on it too.
"We put a teddy bear out front and not doing things by halves, we dressed him up in a different theme every day."
New Zealand has spent many a day in lockdown so coming up with a fresh theme every day took some serious brainstorming.
Teddy reads the newspaper while doing his morning business. Photo / Supplied
"It's a collaboration between myself, my 5-year-old and my better half," Mutu said.
"Honestly, it gets pretty hard and I'm not sure how we managed it but the last two were kind of the best ones we did. One of those was our Luke Skywalker looking after Yoda Star Wars get-up, and on Monday we had a concert bear, with all the soft toys watching and a speaker behind teddy playing music all day.
"We had flashing lights and left it up at night as well, it was a proper party."
The Little Mer-ted catches some rays. Photo / Supplied
He said it was nice to spread a bit of positivity and joy during lockdown.
"My daughter Maia does enjoy it, the concert bear was her idea, so she definitely gets into it.
"We had messages coming through at the start of this lockdown asking if we were doing it again and people walking past asking where the teddy was.
"I think it's more than just the community, you just have to have some nice things happening around the place, it can't be all negative and this is our way of doing something positive that hopefully gives at least one person a smile each day."
May the force be with teddy. Photo / Supplied
One of teddy's biggest fans is Sandra McDonnell who lives across the road and has taken great delight in seeing the new theme each day.
"It's just lovely, they put a lot of thought into it," she said.
"Rain, hail, or shine - they do it every today. It's just a little bit of brightness during a difficult time.
"I think this lockdown has been harder than the first one, perhaps we were too proud of ourselves thinking we had beaten Covid which has made it harder. But I photograph teddy every day and I send them to my kids in Auckland and it brings a bit of brightness into their day."
McDonnell said she was a huge Star Wars fan, so obviously the Luke Skywalker teddy was a clear favourite.
