It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Really? Well try telling the good folk of Donaghcloney that!
For the eagerly-awaited arrival of the annual Christmas tree, which should have heralded cheer for locals and stoked an inner festive glow, has instead brought flashbacks to Hallowe’en, the anticipation extinguished like the proverbial damp squib.
As wide as it is tall, the rather bushy and squat specimen is far from Santa-stic!
The hopes of Donaghclonians have been bruised, they’ve been battered, villagers left questioning why, what could they possibly have done so wrong this year that they’ve raced to the top of the naughty list, overtaking all bar none?
To say that local DUP representative Alderman Mark Baxter is somewhat underwhelmed, on their behalf, is putting it mildly.
For he has been left seeing red after the evergreen brought the blues to one and all…
Villagers weren’t expecting downtown Donaghcloney to light up like Midtown Manhattan, the Rockeller Centre behemoth beyond the borough’s budget.
But anything would be better than this…
Not so much Miracle on 34th Street, more Nightmare on Elm Street, if Good King Wenceslas looked out upon this he’d be inclined to draw his curtains!
Donaghcloney deserves better but has been left feeling cheated, with a tree they agree must have been dredged from the bottom of the barrel.
The feeling of anti-climax is akin to sticking a hand into a tub of chocolates after a post-Christmas Day dinner doze to find a mix of empty wrappers and sidelined coffee creams, with no justifiable cause for Celebration lying therein!
It’s like pulling a Christmas cracker to find the ‘crack’ didn’t ‘crack’, the hat’s missing, novelty broken and you’ve heard the joke before!
Alderman Baxter is adamant that the tree which is now haunting locals’ happiness must fast become a ghost of Christmas past.
It is, he declared, a “pathetic excuse for a Christmas tree”, while assuring the masses of his unequivocal quest for a replacement befitting the borough.
“I’ll be pushing for a proper one,” vowed Alderman Baxter, who is now ho-ho-hoping that his push proves prosperous!
