Vintage Christmas lights return to Darlington
Pictured here (left to right) are volunteers Randy James, Jane Lloyd, Michelle Andrews, Dot Stone, Hannah Dixon, Bryant Gardner, Cathy Kemmerlin, Jacey Stone, Dianne James, Myra Bumgarner, Tami Smith, and Sherry Hanniford.
Photo by Samantha Lyles
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
A group of Darlington citizens united last week with a common cause: to literally make the Christmas season brighter for their friends and neighbors by reconditioning aged holiday decorations. This positive effort had its roots in a prickly online conflict where several people sparred on Facebook about the city’s Christmas lights, but things took an upward turn when some posters agreed to gather at Darlington’s Harmon Baldwin Gym and work together to make things better.
“We’re taking the old lights off of some of the older street ornaments and replacing them with new LED lights so they can be put up around the city,” said volunteer Cathy Kemmerlin, who noted that she’s working with members of the decoration detail to form a Christmas light committee that will help organize decorations and address technical or aesthetic problems well before the 2017 holidays.
After a lot of new wiring, fresh LED light bulbs, and no small amount of elbow grease to clean away layers of grime from the white wire frames, the older decorations – shaped like Christmas trees and angels – were mounted on light posts downtown by Darlington Street Department crews for all residents and visitors to enjoy again.