Residents in Pembroke can expect to see new Christmas decorations throughout the city this year, but the city is also requesting help from residents.
According to Sharroll Fanslau, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, the city received requests from several residents for consistent decorations throughout the city.
“One thing we’ve heard most about is they’d like it all to be the same and all one color — for all of them to be exactly alike and all with white lights,” Fanslau said.
Fanslau said officials are asking for donations to help with the cost of the new decorations, about $8,600, which include commercial-grade lighted garland for all light posts in the city, Christmas lights around the caboose and refurbishing some of the snowflake, angel and deer decorative pole mounts. The donations will also help with the future maintenance of the decorations, she said.
The city isn’t doing a lot of decorating, “but we’re doing them well,” Mayor Mary Warnell noted.
“We didn’t have enough of any one thing to do our decorations,” she said. “So in order to coordinate it to be more consistent throughout the city, we decided it was time to re-do our Christmas decorations. We’re keeping them simple, and hopefully they will be bright and cheerful for the holiday season.”
Fanslau said the Light Up Pembroke Christmas Committee, a group that works with the Downtown Development Authority to help decorate the city for the holidays each year, ordered the decorations through the DDA. She added the city has already received about $3,700 in donations to help with the project.
City workers have already started hanging the decorations, Warnell said, in preparation for the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony the city has planned for 5 p.m. Dec. 1. The ceremony will be short, she noted, but will include Christmas music, prayers from area pastors, a Scripture reading and the lighting of the tree behind the Pembroke Police Department.
Fanslau added while the city will accept donations all year long, those who make donations of $1 or more by Nov. 26 can do so “in memory” or “in honor” of a loved one for their name to be printed in the tree lighting ceremony programs.
 “The donations are actually going to a fund that’s 100 percent Light Up Pembroke, so any time we need to have a replacement bulb or bows or anything, we’ll have that fund for that,” Fanslau said.
Donations can be dropped off at City Hall. For more information, contact Fanslau at 653-4417.