No Christmas Village this year - money to go to buy decorations for town

Deputy Mayor for Culture Chrysoula Tombrou told Enimerosi: "We are not doing anything different from other towns in Greece and other countries. We believe that we have to boost the public's morale at this time when people are feeling down. To give people the chance to take a walk in town and enjoy themselves."

"We aren't going to have a Christmas Village," said Ms. Tombrou. "We're going to decorate the centre of town from the Old Town Hall Square and Evg. Voulgareos St. to San Rocco Square."

She stressed that games won't be rented and there won't be activities where people can gather like last year.

Christmas decorations will be bought such as cribs, little houses, soldiers etc. which will remain the property of the Municipality. "The money had already been budgeted for in any case," said the Deputy Mayor. "And we didn't do anything else during the year due to the pandemic. We decided to purchase decorations which we can keep for future years."

The initial decision of the Finance Committee was to invite tenders for around €50,000 but it didn't proceed as there wasn't the proper documentation from those interested. So the Finance Committee decided to go ahead directly up to the limit of €20,000 limit allowed by law.

The matter had been presented to the Municipal Council before the general lockdown, where it was decided to discuss it in more detail at a later date. However, it has now been 'passed' by the Finance Committee.