Christmas celebrations at a north-east town were saved at the last minute at the weekend due to the sterling efforts of local volunteers.
Every year Santa visits Fraserburgh to signal the holidays, and to launch an evening of late-night shopping.
But the town centre was noticeably different on Friday when there was no Christmas tree in the port’s Broad Street and fireworks were not launched to mark the occasion.
And the roads, which are normally closed to allow for the safe arrival of Santa, remained open.
A consortium of local businesses usually chips in to bring the event to the town.
But this year it was disbanded leaving the town’s Rotary Club desperate to step up to bring as much festive cheer it could muster to keep families entertained.
Last night, Ann Bell, the Rotary’s vice chairwoman, said plans were already in place to make sure that next year was “bigger and better”.
She said: “We only had three weeks to get everything organised.
“We felt it was very important that the community did have its Christmas lights and had the event going ahead.
“It really was important to us, and we all pulled together to make it happen. A few of us even made soup for the night and got sweets for kids to have.
“For next year, we’re going to try and put a committee together to look at events like this across Fraserburgh – to start planning things, and to make sure we an all singing and all dancing Christmas.”
The event, which was still well attended, was the first of several Christmas-themed events lined up for the north-east this holiday season.
A special Super Saturday event is taking place this weekend which will be headlined by Santa’s arrival in the town – again – at 10.30am.
