Dear Sir,

I’ve had this idea for a while; maybe it’s time to let it out.

Bermuda always has beautiful weather during the Christmas season, yet we never encourage tourists to come here at that time of year. We need to have events to entice them here.

May I suggest one event we could try? Why not have professional artists compete to design decorating the City of Hamilton? I’m sure we could get some businesses to sponsor the event, as they will benefit from people being drawn into town. We could get volunteers, school groups, etc, to help to put up the decorations. So we can all have a hand in making Hamilton look beautiful.

Some of the decorations are very nice, but it is done haphazardly and does not have a flow to it. We need to create an atmosphere, with music as well. We need to create a tropical, storybook Christmas.

Also continue the competition along Harbour Road for the best decorated house and then have horse-drawn carriages taking tourists through Harbour Road, singing Christmas carols and drinking egg nog. The lights from Hamilton will look phenomenal reflecting in the water.

We could eventually extend it to the Botanical Gardens, where we could have a festival, with live bands and performers; also craft and food stalls, fun games for children and, of course, Santa.

Tourists can decide to stay a while and hop on a later carriage going back into Hamilton, or they can choose to take the shorter route back into Hamilton.

SANTA’S HELPER