By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
Lifestyle Columnist

When someone who grew up in Germany refers to a “tradition” in his village, he may mean an event that has happened annually since 1167.

In Peachtree City, in 1999, celebrations achieve “tradition” status merely by surviving for a few years.

Holiday celebrations, especially those unique to a particular locale, help make a community of residents thrown together at random, help bond strangers to each other and to place.

The Fourth of July comes to mind.

But despite a conscious effort to launch traditions here that would — we hoped — pass to future generations, more have disappeared than have survived.

The first holiday seasons we lived here were unremarkable, consisting of rowdy office parties, decorated yards and homes, and Christmas Eve church services — nothing that set Peachtree City apart from any other small town.

Except, perhaps, for the Christmas tree the Fulton boys anchored out on a float on Lake Peachtree. I never learned exactly how they did it, but every evening after dark, someone went out to crank the generator that powered the lights.

I thought that cheerful little tree, its multi-colored lights twinkling back from the inky waters, was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, until one very foggy evening when I happened by on Highway 54 (this when maybe a dozen cars drove through town on any given night). The tree appeared to be disembodied, hovering above an invisible lake, existing only as a pyramid of lights shimmering eerily through the mist.

The Fulton boys grew up, and the bicycle bridge that spanned Highway 54 shortly after we arrived in 1971 became the logical place for lights and swags of greenery. So one tradition cedes to another.

Early on, when we numbered fewer than 1,000, the mayor — it must have been Howard Morgan — pulled together a committee to brainstorm ideas that might symbolize Christmas in Peachtree City henceforth and forever more.

Garden Cities Corp., predecessor to Peachtree City Development Corp. which was predecessor to Pathway Communities, were the only folks around that had any money for such projects.

The city didn't. We didn't even have city taxes until 1974. Police protection was provided by the sheriff's office. The fire department was entirely volunteer. Streets, water, sewers were installed by the developer. The schools, of course, were also county supported.

Anything we did on a community basis in Peachtree City was paid for by individual or corporate donations, by fund-raisers or sweat equity, or by Garden Cities. They were happy to pay for newsworthy happenings that called attention to their fledgling city.

Don't misunderstand. They went far beyond minimum requirements in building Peachtree City; their generosity made this place the attractive place it was and is, and gave us amenities we could probably never have afforded on our own. Sure, they sold lots. Sure, the town grew. That was the design.

But I digress. In a rare instance of a committee that worked, several citizens and Garden Cities' people came up with the idea of an old-timey yule log to kick off the holiday season. We'd gather `round a merry fire on the common area by the lake, just east of old City Hall, which was then in a strip of offices where the fountain is today. We'd enlist church choirs to sing, we'd serve hot chocolate, and at the right moment, Santa Claus would arrive on a fire truck to take children's requests.

Well, it worked for several years, and I'm not altogether certain today when we gave it up. It takes only a couple of years of bad weather, after all, and a new population base that doesn't recall traditions from years past because they weren't here then, and such events become irrelevant and go away.

The short-lived tradition I mourn most was the German Weihnachtsmarkt.

Peachtree City has a sizeable population of Germans and Americans who have lived in, traveled in, and love Germany, and a few of us came up with the idea of a Christmas market like those in every dorf in Deutschland. The first weekend in December, a craft-and-food festival with a heavy German accent, complete with wandering accordionists, minstrels and oom-pah bands burgeoned into a two-day revel on City Hall Plaza.

Lufthansa gave away stollen flown in for the occasion; ersatz gluhwein flowed; handmade wooden toys and ornaments clattered. A bonfire was lit that first year, like those that illuminate the German Alps on Christmas Eve. The tree was lighted and Santa welcomed, and church choirs massed on the bicycle bridge to serenade the crowds.

For an unproven venture, that first year was a huge success. The weather was cold but clear and bright. Everyone — volunteers, city employees, PCDC — pitched in with a will.

The second year saw an even larger assembly of merchants, but rain kept the crowds down.

By the third year, a city staffer took exception to the ethnic flavor, and declared that this is America, not Germany, so we should have an American festival. The event became just another arts and crafts fair and, with nothing to distinguish it from a thousand others, faded into oblivion.

As I was lamenting these losses to city recreation chief Randy Gaddo recently, gentle man that he is, he pointed out that my home town's success has been its own undoing. Events that worked when we were smaller and traffic lighter are too cumbersome now.

How could you safely accommodate the kind of crowd a bonfire might draw today, and where would you have it anyhow?

Highway 54 is a four-lane road today. Where could a crowd gather to listen to choristers on the bridge? And then there's the dicey December weather.

There's still loads to do during the holidays. A tree lights up, Santa still arrives, still by fire truck.

But allow me one wistful moment to remember traditions of Christmas past, gone so soon... 

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