Fairview transforms into Christmas village with town-wide decorations
Dec. 5—FAIRVIEW — Holiday spirit is best when it's shared with others.
The drive down US 218 into Fairview is usually quaint as it is. The small town that hugs the highway winds along with the hills. This weekend, motorists making the trip into Fairview will be met with a Christmas wonderland.
Just down the hill from Fairview Elementary, the town park was set aglow Saturday evening. Christmas lights strung around every fence, inflatable holiday decorations filled the field, the pavilion was covered in decorations and the park's stage had Christmas projections lighting up its walls.
Farther down the hill, against Main Street, the Town Hall had its windows filled with lights and candles, outside on the front lawn, more inflatable decorations and lights covered the grass. Next door, St. Paul Baptist Church had a large nativity scene set up.
The path around the back of Town Hall leads to an inflatable archway heading up to the council chambers in the top floor of the building. Inside, the chambers were transformed into something out of a Hallmark Christmas special.
Animatronics line the walls, decorations fill the space, lights run along the ceiling, and a beautiful Christmas tree stands proudly at the center of the room. At the back corner, a table offering hot chocolate is staffed by the Lisa Roupe and Heather Tuttle, the town's two clerks, who were the brains behind Fairview's first Christmas show of lights and decorations.
"We really did this for the community. The school kids love it, we have a lot of shut-ins around that love to see the lights and it gives everyone something to come enjoy together," Tuttle said.
In total, the decorations included 25 inflatables and hundreds of dolls, animatronics and holiday decorations. All the pieces were borrowed for the occasion from Roupe's son Andy, who's collected holiday decorations of all kinds for years. This gave him the chance to show off his collection and do something nice for the town.
Andy Roupe and the town's maintenance director Jake Clayton installed the decorations and made sure everything was ready for the weekend. Looking around the decorated council chambers, Lisa Roupe was thrilled with the way everything came together.
"This has really kicked off the holiday really well for me and for the rest of us," she said. "With Andy being my son, this is how every Christmas at my house looks."
Once families from the town started funneling into the warm town hall, Fairview Mayor Eric Savors stopped by to see how everything turned out. He was surprised to see just how extravagant everything appeared.
"Everything looks very, outside and inside and it really gets me into the Christmas spirit," Savors said. "Before the pandemic, everything used to be a big celebration here in town, then that all went down with the pandemic. Now we're starting to get back into it and this is a good sign of that."
The decorations will remain up throughout December until the first week of January.
Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.
