Holiday spirit takes hold in Sunset Beach

Angelique Flores

SUNSET BEACH -- Santa in red trunks surfing while reindeer fly

overhead? A surfer snowman donning a red baseball cap while standing

beside his surfboard?

People need only look up at the banners along the green belt.

For the first time, flags featuring holiday themes are hanging in the

community, along the grassy stretch of land between North and South

Pacific avenues. The holiday banners will be displayed until January.”We

wanted to make the community look a little nicer, make it pretty and give

an identity to Sunset Beach,” said Pat Thies, president of the Sunset

Beach Community Assn. “And the Christmas spirit is wonderful.”

Art teacher Linda Fitch led 25 children, mostly from the Sunset Beach

neighborhood, in a summer art program sponsored by the Sunset Beach

Community Assn., Las Damas and the Sunset Beach Women’s Club. The

students, ages 4 to 14, spent six weeks designing and painting the 16

double-sided banners, which feature eight cheerful holiday images. The

designs include dolphins swimming with Santa’s cap, red stockings,

Christmas trees, snowmen, golden bells, candy canes and holiday wreaths.

“The only complaint is that we don’t have more of them,” Thies said.

The children who created the banners have been waiting since summer to

see them displayed, Fitch said. Fitch may have the children paint another

set of banners next summer, she said.

“I think it’s really cool. I like to see them every time I come home,”

said Lauren Alderette, 12.

Lauren, who designed the banner with the Christmas trees, said she was

proud to have helped paint the community’s first set of holiday banners.

“We want the kids to feel a part of the community,” Thies said.

Thies said she and many in the community plan to soon ask county

officials to install additional brackets to hold even more banners.