Fairy Lights, Fog and Forty Tractors: The Making of Gonerby's Christmas Convoy

On a Tuesday night in early November, the village hall smells of coffee, wet coats and the faint whiff of someone's tractor cab. Six members of Gonerby YFC are stood around a folding table, looking at a laminated map of the village as if it has personally insulted them. The Christmas tractor run is five weeks away. The route is not finished.

'We can't send forty tractors down Baker's Lane,' says one. 'Not with the parked cars. Not with the fairy lights.'

'We can if we go the long way,' says another.

'That's not the long way. That's the wrong way.'

This is how the club's most anticipated night of the year begins: not with tinsel, but with an argument about a junction.

The route before the ribbons

The 2026 Christmas tractor run will leave the showground at 4.30pm on Saturday 12 December. It will roll through Great Gonerby, down into the edge of Grantham, loop back through the village and finish at the hall for mince pies and hot chocolate. There will be around forty tractors, one trailer dressed as Santa's sleigh, a police escort, a first aid team and enough high-vis to kit out a small building site.

None of that happens by accident.

Planning starts in September. The committee draws up a route, then a back-up route, then a third route for the bit where a farmer decides to move cattle at the last minute. They talk to the parish council, the local police, the insurers and the owners of the village hall. They work out where marshals can stand safely, where the convoy can pull over, and which corners are too tight for a tractor with a set of flashing fairy lights and a fake reindeer strapped to the roof.

'You think it's just a bunch of lads on tractors,' says committee member Hannah Pacey. 'Then you see the risk assessment. It's twelve pages. Twelve.'

The risk assessment is not the glamorous bit. Neither is the email chain about traffic cones. But both are why the run has gone from a small convoy in 2022 to a date that now sits in the village diary alongside bonfire night and the school nativity.

A convoy with a job to do

The drivers are a mix. Some are third-generation farmers. Some work in agronomy, engineering or haulage. Some are members who keep a vintage tractor as a hobby and only get it out twice a year. There is a 1978 Ford 6600 with a cab that smells of straw and old radio, a shiny modern John Deere that looks like it has been dressed by a professional sleigh maker, and a small grey Ferguson that has been in one family since the 1960s.

Every tractor gets decorated. That is not optional. The brief is simple: lights, tinsel, something festive, nothing that will fly off at 20mph. In practice, the brief is interpreted widely. One member has built a fake snow machine out of a leaf blower and a bag of icing sugar. Another has attached a wooden Santa to a bale spike. A third has been banned from using a smoke machine after last year's incident at the traffic lights.

'It's not a competition,' says driver Tom Rippon, who has done every run since it started. 'But if it was, I'd win. The Ferguson has a lit-up star on the exhaust. It's tasteful. The rest of them are just showing off.'

The run is not just for show. It collects for the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance, with buckets at the finish and collection tins at the village hall. Last year's total was just over £3,400. This year the club is hoping to beat it, though no one is allowed to say that too loudly in case it tempts fate.

Mince pies and marshals

The unsung heroes of the night are in the kitchen. Around twenty volunteers are needed to make drinks, hand out mince pies, direct cars, count buckets and keep the tractor drivers from eating the entire supply before the first tractor has left the yard.

There is a rota. There is a spreadsheet. There is a disagreement about whether the mince pies should be warm or room temperature. Warm wins, narrowly.

'It's a village event,' says volunteer Rachel Mowbray. 'People who never come to anything come to this. People bring their kids in pyjamas. People stand at the end of their drive with a mug and wave. That's why we do it.'

The route is designed to pass the care home, the primary school and the two spots in the village where older residents can watch without leaving their front gates. It is also designed to avoid the narrowest bend after dark. The committee learned that the hard way in 2024, when a trailer got stuck and the convoy had to reverse for ten minutes while a man in a dressing gown offered unsolicited advice.

Why it keeps coming back

The tractor run is not a fundraiser first. It is not a competition. It is not even really about tractors. It is a chance for the club to be seen as part of the village, not just a group of young farmers who meet in a hall and disappear into fields.

'When people see us out there, they see the fun bit,' says club chair Will Naylor. 'They don't see the meetings. But the meetings are what make the fun bit happen.'

There is still a lot to do. The marshals need briefing. The route needs walking. The fairy lights need testing. Someone needs to find the box of extension leads that was definitely in the shed in October. The mince pies need ordering, the raffle tickets need printing, and the Santa trailer needs a new beard after last year's unfortunate incident with a bale spike.

But on 12 December, at about half four in the afternoon, the first tractor will roll out of the showground with its lights on. The village will come to the end of its drives. The kids will wave. The drivers will concentrate very hard on not clipping the kerb. And the committee will stand by the hall, watching the convoy go, already taking mental notes for next year.

Then they will eat the mince pies. Warm, obviously.