Puanga is New Zealand's beginning to the year, just like Yule (Christmas/New Year) in the Northern Hemisphere. The darkest night is here and slowly the world turns toward the fecundity of summer again.
Anything that encourages all of us to reflect on our connectedness - with each other, the earth, our food and the natural cycles of food production - that's got to be good.
And if there is the will for big, extravagant public displays of fireworks, that would be the time.
It's dark early, so the littlies don't have to stay up late. It will have been raining, so the fire danger is much reduced. And there's something cheering about getting out of the house and in among a big, friendly, all-ages crowd, especially in winter when the tendency is to hibernate.
Then we could abandon the ridiculousness of us "celebrating" with fireworks the gruesome torture and execution of Guy Fawkes.
Do kids any more even know that Guy Fawkes was a militant English Catholic convicted of high treason in 1606 for an attempt to blow up the English Parliament? Do they know what spurred on the "Gunpowder Plot"?
An Act of Parliament, no less, subsequently required public displays of thanksgiving on November 5, with the lighting of bonfires and burning of effigies and mandatory attendance at (a Protestant) church.
In the first decades, the day was marked by fervent anti-Catholic sentiment. We can see what misery that sectarianism has inflicted on parts of the UK even up to the present day.
Of all the empty husks of colonial baggage, this is surely the most indefensible.
It's time to let it go.
Until Parliament shows some leadership by banning the sale and DIY-detonation of fireworks, we have do it ourselves. Just don't buy them. That would save firefighters and emergency department staff a whole lot of hassle and do away with the suffering and stress experienced by animals.
I am increasingly resentful of the way traditional holidays are being appropriated by businesses as ways to sell more stuff.
I happily recall childhood Boxing Days spent at the beach or park with the extended family, the Christmas leftovers spilling out of chilly bins, salt on our skin and sand in our food. There'd be swingball or impromptu beach cricket or a football knocked around and lots of swimming or paddling.
As if the relentless exhortation to spend money leading up to Christmas wasn't more than enough, now we have Boxing Day sales, with discounts deep enough to lure us into the windowless big box stores yet again.
Hardly conducive to relaxing and enjoying being with the people you love - and it means people rostered on to work the cash registers, away from their families.
In contrast, Whanganui's capacity to make its own fun is one of the things I love about living here.
The raft race last year was a great example. Oh, it got Plumber Dan some publicity for his business that money couldn't buy, but that clearly wasn't the primary goal.
I joined a throng of people on the eastern riverbank, and could see crowds gathered at every vantage point along the awa to watch, cheer and roar with sympathy as the rafts made their way downriver.
What a blast of fun it was.
Then there are the bike jumps built by young teenage boys willing to spend many hours with shovels to create their own heart-stopping entertainment on unused public land. No committee meetings, no entry fee, no membership required, just sweat and callouses. All power to them.
■Rachel Rose is a writer, gardener, fermenter and fomenter.
