The spirit of Christmas has been given some emergency CPR, with Banna Avenue set to be lit up with lights and festooned with colourful banners in the leadup to the festive season.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Griffith City Council's Christmas Working Group have been working to revive the Christmas spirit to make up for last year's underwhelming display.
The group are hoping to banish the ghost of Christmas past with a month of festivities, including bus rides around the city, a rotary carnival, a night of carols, and more decorations.
Committee member Kay Borland said she wanted to put some light and colour back into Christmas, which has been on the wane in recent years.
"The Christmas spirit just kind of died," Mrs Borland said.
She's hoping that if council lights up Banna Avenue it will encourage business owners to follow suit and decorate their own shop front windows.
However a wrench was thrown into council's plans when they missed out on the latest round of My Community Project grant funding, meaning they'll have to stick with their original $30,000 budget.
"Everyone was excited at the thought of it, but not enough people voted so now we're stuck with a lot less money than we had anticipated," Mrs Borland said.
"What we've got from council is a start, and next year we'll have more money to make Banna Avenue even more beautiful."
READ MORE
Working group chairman Councillor Dino Zappacosta said the the committee were in the running for another government grant early next year.
Cr Zappacosta said this year's Christmas would lay the groundwork for more to come, and that the committee would continue working towards a truly Christmas in 2020.
"We'll make sure everyone is aware that Christmas is alive," Cr Zappacosta said.
"We've got such vitality in the community - I know we're going to have a wonderful month of Christmas spirit."
***
While you're with us, did you know that you can now receive updates straight to your inbox every Monday at 6am from The Area News? To make sure you're up to date with all the Griffith and MIA news you can sign up here.