


Warragul Carols is a wonderful event, orchestrated by the Combined Churches of Warragul, held at Civic Park on Christmas Eve. The community was beyond excited to dress in red and green attire, spread picnic blankets, sing, dance and together celebrate after an absence of several years. Civic Park’s lush green lawn was filled with joyous families and Christmas merrymakers.

Comperes, Bec and Russ, did an outstanding job tying the performances together and keeping the expectant mood of the evening flowing. The Carols’ night of festivities was opened by CJ’s Puppets; hilarity, stories and singing mesmerised and delighted young and not-so-young alike, setting a great tone for the smorgasbord of entertainment that followed.
Bethany Fisher and Friends shared their energy and vivacity, encouraging the all-too-keen audience to show their own dance moves, with several prizes awarded for outstanding performances. The Warragul Carollers harmonised a number of traditional carols beautifully, with orchestral accompaniment provided by the accomplished and highly skilled Municipal Band. The multi-skilled Swamp Dogs (curiously, no canine was spied on stage) did some ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’, after encouraging us in song to ‘Get Together’.


Eidhim and Kairene McCaffery gleefully reminded the children, although it’s doubtful they need reminding, that ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ and Eidhim presented a lovely solo of ‘Little Road to Bethlehem’. With Christmas Day traditional roast just hours away, Whiskey River Collective toe-tappingly taught us ‘How to Make Gravy’; then better things were hoped for in their melodic performance of ‘Maybe This Christmas’.
Libby Willems wished everyone, “A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” in a beautiful rendition of the ‘War is Over’ and then tunefully told us what happened in the ‘Last Month of the Year’. Rowan Walker’s powerful, rich voice had Civic Park’s evening air fairly crackling with the words of ‘O Holy Night’ permeating to the farthest corners and most distant ears.

REDfusion Studios was privileged to provide video production services, both on the night and in producing films for two outstanding community organisations – Baw Baw Food Relief and Operation Christmas Child. Both are terrific causes to support and great fun to be a part of.
Baw Baw Food Relief provides an invaluable service throughout the year for those doing it tough, with short-term food assistance (which includes a large range of foods, hygiene products, pet food and drinks), a drop in centre and pastoral care. BBFR also oversees the collection and distribution of Christmas hampers donated by local businesses and the community, bringing so much joy to the recipients. BBFR and their op shop can be found at Factory 6, 11 Pearse Street, Warragul. Donations are accepted with great humility and thankfulness throughout the year (M-F 10:00am-2:00pm) and the op shop, filled with bargains, is open M-F 9:00am-3:00pm.
Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child is a beautiful opportunity to fill a ‘shoe box’ with all manner of useful and fun goodies for distribution to underprivileged children within Australia and overseas. https://occ.samaritanspurse.org.au/ has all the information to assist in planning, packing and dropping off ‘shoe boxes’, or to become a volunteer. Check it out and the photos of smiling children showing off the gifts they received!!
Adam Mihail from CCW (Community Church Warragul) spoke from the heart of the wonder of Christmas and we captured it for all to share.
As the pristine blue sky gave way to the still, inky night, a beautiful moving light and colour display was provided by the children brandishing their recent acquisitions from the merchandise tent of ‘all things that glow’.
A huge shout out to the organisers and sponsors; they did a terrific job in enabling and organising the return of this very special community event.

REDfusion had a blast on the evening, working alongside tech crews from Entertainment Gippsland and John Mudie’s sound crew and we look forward, with anticipation, to future gigs with them.

The Christmas Season has such an exciting build-up and then, sadly, it’s all gone in what feels like a blink of an eye. We put together a short reel of highlights from Warragul Carols by Candlelight and hope you relive Christmas joy while watching it.