A MOMENT of Christmas creativity from a part-time Portarlington resident has sparked an enormous reaction from locals of the seaside town.<\/p>\n
Noelene Vagg, a disability worker based in Ballarat, who makes the weekly trip down to Portarlington where she stays at the nearby caravan park with her husband, thought she would take a different approach to spreading this year’s Christmas cheer.<\/p>\n
“I love Christmas, I always go overboard at Christmas time, and I was just out on Portarlington’s foreshore a couple of weeks ago playing around with some of the seaweed that builds up there,” Ms Vagg said.<\/p>\n
“Then it just sort of clicked that I could go to the local $2 store and buy some red noses and googly eyes.<\/p>\n
“That’s how these sculptures came about.”<\/p>\n
Making the charming yet goofy looking reindeer structures was simple.<\/p>\n
Ms Vagg gathered two balls of the beach’s seaweed and connected them via a stick to form the head and body.<\/p>\n
More sticks were then placed strategically to give the reindeer legs and antlers, before the eyes, noses and even jingle bells were attached to complete the artwork.<\/p>\n
Once Ms Vagg took photos with Port Phillip Bay in the background as well as the Portarlington Pier, it only made sense to share it through the Portarlington Community Noticeboard on Facebook.<\/p>\n
“The reaction from residents was crazy,” Ms Vagg said.<\/p>\n
“I literally chucked it up online expecting just someone to like it, but it exploded.<\/p>\n
“In the end, with the separate likes on individual photos and the overall post we received close to 1,000 interactions.<\/p>\n
“It was just nice to put a smile on people’s faces, that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n
Christmas is always a big occasion in Portarlington according to Ms Vagg, but this year’s festivities had more meaning she said, given 2021 was a year filled with lockdowns and restrictions.<\/p>\n
“We have family in Melbourne we were not able to visit and had the birth of a grandson as well, which made this year particularly hard,” Ms Vagg said.<\/p>\n
“It’s been tough not being able to visit family, but we were lucky enough to travel to Portarlington when were not in our short lockdowns up in Ballarat.<\/p>\n
“Nevertheless, Christmas is always a special time of the year and like I always say, it’s not what is under the tree that makes the day special, it is the people around it that does.”<\/p>\n
Following the photoshoot of the seaweed reindeer sculptures, Ms Vagg removed all plastics involved to avoid harming the local environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A MOMENT of Christmas creativity from a part-time Portarlington resident has sparked an enormous reaction from locals of the seaside town. Noelene Vagg, a disability worker based in Ballarat, who makes the weekly trip down to Portarlington where she stays at the nearby caravan park with her husband, thought she would take a different approach […]<\/p>\n