MOSS POINT—What started as a group of friends welcoming the fall season with scarecrows, pumpkins and bales of hay has grown into a more than 30-year tradition of bringing year-round holiday spirit to downtown Moss Point.
Linda Walsh, one of the original “friends” that brought the decorating idea to life, said there were a handful of ladies who decided they wanted to decorate a few main corners in Moss Point to welcome the new season and to build excitement in the city. She recalls making scarecrows from poster boards donated by International Paper and having them laminated for protection from the weather.
“I think we decorated maybe three or four corners in the city,” Mrs. Walsh said. “The next year we were more organized, and we came up with a name for our committee of volunteers. Each year following, the decorated downtown area of Moss Point grew bigger, and each year we had a different theme for our decorations.”
The third year the displays designed by the CELEBRATIONS! Committee grew much larger in the downtown area, and the committee came up with a name for the fall decorations initiative—Fall-de-Rah.
Linda Holden, then economic director for the City of Moss Point, was the leader of CELEBRATIONS! from the beginning and remained in that lead role for many years. Now the CELEBRATIONS! Committee has been active for 33 years starting with a celebration of the fall season and eventually named the annual Fall-de-Rah initiative.
“Linda Holden was our high-spirited leader from the beginning,” Mrs. Walsh added. “She would gather us right after the Easter season to being sharing ideas of what our next Fall-de-Rah theme would be.”
Finding inspiration from committee members’ travels, current events, and images in magazines, a theme would be chosen and brought to life.
“After months of planning, designing new decorations, and sharing ideas of decorations we would see on vacations or in magazines, we took on enormous projects…even surprising ourselves sometimes,” Walsh added.
Always using the original pumpkins, hay and scarecrows, the committee has created Fall-de-Rah themes including nursery rhyme characters, toy characters, porch sitting and recently created displays to celebrate the 100th anniversary of MS Export Railroad in Moss Point.
“That year we had lots and lots of trains with scarecrows as train engineers!” Mrs. Walsh recalls.
CELEBRATIONS! also believes in recycling. After Thanksgiving, the fall decorations are transformed into a winter wonderland and have been used as backdrops for family, group or individual photos. Eventually the committee began creating decorations from plywood that could be stored and used multiple times.
“Those decorations needed to be cut from wood, sanded, painted, and maintained, and each year we added new decorations,” Mrs. Walsh said, remembering the birdhouses, flowers, a variety of birds and more that they have accumulated.
“We have many decorations that are more than 20 years old,” she said. “As we grew with more volunteers, we gained more talent and new ideas, and we started decorating the downtown area for Christmas, Easter and the 4th of July.
Mrs. Walsh took over as the lead “cheerleader” about 5 years ago, and even with fewer volunteers to help, the holiday displays always appear along Main Street.
“We have our faithful five plus husbands, so we manage to get all our decorations for each season displayed throughout the downtown area,” Walsh said.
*All photos are courtesy of Susan Stachowski
