Beach towns do Christmas their own way. With very little dashing through the snow, towns like Wrightsville Beach develop a unique set of holiday traditions — such as displaying the illuminated leaping dolphins at the town’s entrance and designating Santa’s festive lifeguard stand — to transform the island into a different sort of winter wonderland.
These traditions accumulated over the years as more and more residents remained at the beach through the winter. Decades ago, though, only a handful of people stayed around for the season. It was just a small group of family and friends, and for the most part, everyone knew everyone else.
The number of children on the island was even smaller. While the youngest children visited Santa Claus, the older kids celebrated the holiday a little differently. Christopher Rogers remembered one Christmas he spent at Wrightsville Beach as a teenager in the late 1980s.
Rogers said the weather was so mild he dressed in shorts Christmas Day. He and two other family members walked to Wrightsville Beach School to play basketball. When they arrived, Rogers said his father, uncle and two cousins were already there. They formed teams and started a game, adding on players to each team as more people showed up. They played all afternoon before splitting up to go eat Christmas dinner with their respective families.
Rogers said playing basketball at the school — a location they chose because the short basketball hoops allowed them to dunk — was a typical December pass-time for the Wrightsville Beach teens.
“When you can’t get in the water,” he said, “you’re out doing some other type of activities.”
The town did offer one Christmas tradition for the young children beginning in the early 1960s, and they still remember it vividly. Linda Robinson recalled accompanying her father as he drove out to Brunswick County to find and chop down the town Christmas tree. He brought it back on his truck and the tree was erected in the municipal docks, now Wynn Plaza.
“I was always amazed he was able to get such a big tree,” Robinson said, “I just remember asking him, ‘Daddy, do we have permission to do this?’”
And he didn’t stop at delivering the tree. Robinson said she sat next to him in his truck as he drove up and down the beach, blasting Christmas carols from loudspeakers he hooked up to a record player.
On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus came over the bridge on a fire truck to visit the children near the illuminated tree at the docks.
“One year, they surprised everybody and he came in on the Coast Guard boat,” she said.
Her father was also one of the founding members of the Lions Club, and every Christmas they assembled food baskets to donate and stuffed mesh stockings full of candy and fruit for Santa to give to the children during the tree lighting ceremony.
“I stood in line and Santa Claus gave me that stocking that I already knew the Lions Club had packed,” Robinson said.
Jan Brewington remembered the excitement of seeing Santa Claus too, of climbing up to the decorated platform to sit on his lap. There was usually just a short line of children, some Wrightsville Beach residents and the policemen, which included her father, Chief “Stinky” Williamson.
“And I suspect that one of the police officers was Santa Claus,” she said.
After Santa Claus listened to all the children’s Christmas wishes, Chief Williamson would take him over the bridge to the Babies Hospital where he would visit with the sick children.
“My dad could never come to my grandmother’s house until after he was done with Santa Claus and the children,” Brewington said.
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