“OK, let’s see how that looks. Oh!” A step back from the garland she and Linda Belmont had just wrapped around and around a bollard’s chain, Terri Wells was liking the look.

So were their fellow volunteers in the bright Wiscasset morning sun and November wind Saturday as they climbed ladders, passed scissors, twisted and wrapped garland and raised wreaths along Main Street’s new sidewalks from the state. 

Appearance of the Town Committee member Terry Heller said turnout was “fantastic,” at least 30 people, including Friends of Wiscasset Village, Garden Club of Wiscasset, and Federal Street Neighbors. The committee coordinated it, the town funded the lights and the garden club paid for the fir garland and wreaths and the red bows, she said. In three hours, the volunteers decorated “everything that didn’t move” and had big fun doing it,  she said.

They did. Carrying four garlands that hung from her neck to below her knees, Beth Maxwell smiled back at Victorian Santa and Kentucky Derby winner comments.

William Truesdell spotted a thumbs up from a Route 1 motorist. Why did Truesdell want to help? “I want to see our new downtown look as beautiful as possible.”

The garland strands were heavier than Heller expected. “So they wouldn’t just attach to the chains on top. We had to twist them around the chains and then the lights were twisted on top of the garland. I think it looks great! (And) with the garland and lights twisting down the lamp poles, they turned out just beautifully, exactly like a Dickensian Christmas village that we all wanted.”

Claudia Sortwell said the decorating effort was “a great thing ... We were waiting for years to put the community together to do something good for the town.” And how was it looking? “Oh beautiful!” Sortwell and husband Dan Sortwell are partners in Big Barn Coffee. The Churchill Street business donated coffee to the refreshments table.