up front
We are big on Christmas this year.
Senior Editor/Publisher
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com 13
WBM
FEELING everyone, including
ourselves, needed as much holiday
cheer as possible, we’ve packed in
a lot of it.
There’s plenty to fill up on, from a
decked-out French Country house at
Landfall in our Home of Distinction
feature to holiday recipes by Eliza Schuett.
We also have not one but two holiday
blasts from the past. There’s the once
world’s largest living community
Christmas tree, a Wilmington tradition
at Hilton Park for 87 years. Imagine this
— in 1959 as many as 150,000 people
from 42 states and 11 countries came to
the lighting ceremony. We also have Fred
Newber’s reflections of the historic light-ing
up of our area over the holidays from
the Cape Fear River to Banks Channel.
We also have suggestions — from
music to movies to gift giving and acts
of kindness — to help everyone find the
Christmas spirit. Speaking of Spirit,
we have the story of a filmmaker who
captured God stories at a revival in a
tent that went up in Wilmington in September.
The Wilmington Ballet is celebrating Christmas with the
Nutcracker, one of my all-time favorites. What childhood
memories that surface.
My memories continue with my photo this month. This is
my 22nd December issue! I had so much fun dressing up for it,
complete with one of my mother’s furs from the 1940s.
Frank Potter styled my high fashion hair, complete with
big bling. In fact, it was Frank who suggested that for this our
22nd-anniversary issue it was time to go big or go home.
Even if art is not your thing, be sure to catch our art feature.
There’s a sentence about the art of Angela Rowe, who paints the
memories of food, that resonated with me: “Each of us holds
memories with food.”
There’s also a look back at fishing at Greenfield Lake.
All right, let’s do it up BIG to close out this year. Light up your
yard, house and dock, and invite the neighbors and friends over to
celebrate.
Blessings and honor and glory and power be unto the One who
we owe it all to.
Pat’s hair styled by Frank Potter, makeup styled by Regan Daughtry, and bling pieces all from Bangz Hair Salon.
ALLISON POTTER
Pat Bradford dressed for the holidays on Greenfield Lake’s picturesque bridge.
Our cover this month didn’t start out to be in honor of my beloved sister, Diana Dempsey (1937 - 2021), who worked as part of our magazine staff for
about a year pre-recession. But she passed from this world into heaven on the morning of the evening in November that we shot this glorious cover.
As we laughed and laughed launching then corralling these lanterns in the calm water off Motts Channel, in the dark, I couldn’t help but
remark how much she would’ve loved it. I dedicate this issue to her.