By WAYNE CAMPBELL for The Voice
If you smiled when you saw evergreen boughs, garlands and red bows on polls along town streets, you made Gayle Baltjes-Chataway’s day.
“That’s what it is all about,” to get everyone in the good mood, said the head decorator.
For 25 years, she and a handful of elves on a dark late November mornings have put bows and evergreens on polls.
“It started as a secret,” she said. “We stayed anonymous. Everyone thought it was the town doing it.”
Originally, she paid for the decorations and recruited the elves. In recent years, the Pelham Business Association helped out.
Now, the town has joined in through Christmas in Pelham as the work grew to cover Fonthill, Ridgeville and Fenwick.
This year, a call for volunteers brought out the largest pack of elves ever, she said.
About 30, including three town staff, Communities in Bloom and Active Transportation committee members, and Pelham Panthers Junior B hockey players, turned up at 6 a.m. in the Star Tile parking lot with clippers, gloves and pickup trucks.
They put up 450 regular evergreen boughs, 20 large swags made by Paul Ryan, 1,200 feet of garlands and 600 red bows.
“We were tickled pink with all the help,” said Baltjes-Chataway.
