Crews were out at the crack of dawn Wednesday morning putting up the Christmas decorations throughout downtown Maple Ridge, just in time for the Santa Claus parade taking place this Saturday.
Two workers from Boileau Electric and around four or five from the city started the day at 7:30 a.m. at 224 Street and Dewdney Trunk Road.
After finishing 224 Street the group, as per tradition, went for breakfast together before completing Lougheed Highway.
This year there will be no decorations along Lougheed Highway where the construction is taking place. The temporary poles along that section don’t have the brackets to mount the bells.
Instead, Lougheed Highway will be decorated between 222 Street and 224 Street. Then there will be no decorations from 224 Street to 226 Street and then decorated again from 226 Street to 228 Street.
In addition to the traditional Christmas bells that have been put up around the city since 1966, Boileau will also be hanging snowfalls on trees and decorating the bandstand, the horse clock and the big tree in the Memorial Peace Park loop.
The bandstand will be decorated with colourful lights all around the trim and up the seams. The horse clock will be outlined with coloured lights, while the big tree at the southeast corner of Memorial Peace Park will also be decorated.
There will also be three shooting stars put up along Dewdney Trunk Road between 222nd and 224th streets.
They will have new lights in them so they will be brighter this year.
The deadline to put the decorations up was Dec. 1, the day of Christmas in the Park and the Santa Claus parade.
However crews expected to be finished by 2 p.m. Wednesday.