Faith gets Frosty: Annual festival brings Christmas spirit to town
Published 12:10 am Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Dimensions Dance Arts members perform at Faith Frosty Fest. - Chandler Inions
Spectators line the street to watch the parade at the Faith Frosty Fest on Saturday. - Chandler Inions
Caitlin "Grinch" Holshouser pets Christi Powell's Frenchie Vito. - Chandler Inions
Santa Claus lights the Christmas tree at Faith Frosty Fest. - Chandler Inions
Flip City Gymnastics receives an ovation following its floor routines at the Faith Frosty Fest. - Chandler Inions
Todd Fink, left, and Karen Fink, right, order from Baba-Bread Artisan Bakery owners Alison Oghittu and Bruno Oghittu. - Chandler Inions
Whitney Wetter writes a letter to Santa. - Chandler Inions
Elliot Gordy, left, and Grant Gordy come down the slide at Faith Frosty Fest. - Chandler Inions
Cynthia Newton, left, and Tammy Yon stand by their first place golf cart that was dedicated to their recently deceased brother David “Dav-I” Earnhardt. - Submitted
FAITH — Downtown Faith was alight with seasonal cheer on Saturday during the town’s annual Frosty Fest.
While it was a time of celebration for many, it also marked an opportunity for a few people there to memorialize loved ones that they lost this year.
Sisters Cynthia Newton and Tammy Yon took home first place in the event’s golf cart parade with a vehicle designed to honor their late brother, David “Dav-I” Earnhardt, a Granite Quarry Police officer who died in October. Their winning golf cart was adorned with an inflatable police cruiser and other decorations that Earnhardt was known to feature each Christmas.
“They are actually his Christmas decorations,” Yon said. “The police car on the top was his only yard decoration for Christmas. We had his stocking hanging from the front and then the sides were made in his honor. They were all his things.”
Newton added that to have won with a cart honoring their late brother “meant the world.”
Newton and Yon were not the only two people celebrating the life of a loved one now gone. In addition to the golf cart contest, event organizers also had an ugly Christmas sweater contest named for last year’s winner Bud Moose. Like Earnhardt, Moose also died earlier this year.
Tara Sigmon, Moose’s daughter, was one of the event organizers.
“Dad was always a jokester,” Sigmon said. “Anybody that knew him knew he loved tall tales and would joke all the time.
“With him being recognized as this, it keeps his memory alive.”
A lot of work goes into putting the festival together.
Sigmon and the other event organizers opened the window for vendors to apply in August. She said that last year they had about 70 vendors but they scaled it back this year to 60.
“We spend about three to four weeks meeting and planning with a group of volunteers to do layouts of the tents and trying to food truck involved as well as getting sponsors for the horse carriage rides and other parts of the festival,” Sigmon said.
Another event organizer, Vicki Meyer, said that the feedback they get from visitors to Frosty Fest is always “positively overwhelming.”
“We have had people come from as far as Concord and Charlotte because they wanted to see what a hometown spirit felt like and they were just in shock because everyone is feeling the holiday festive spirit and they want to come back,” Meyer said. “If you see the town the way it is decorated with the red and green lights at night, that is who Faith is, the spirit of the holiday.”
Meyer pointed to some features of the festival that harken back to yesteryear as being highlights.
“The kids are having a ball because they are learning what we did in the old days with hot cocoa and s’mores and the horse-drawn carriage rides,” Meyer said.
The Frosty Fest lineup consisted of several musical acts from local schools as well as a choreographed dance performance from members of Dimensions Dance Arts.
Tabatha Rayfield is a dance instructor, owner and director of the Rockwell-based Dimensions. She said that her dancers love to be involved in community events like Frosty Fest.
“We participate in all the local events,” Rayfield said. “We participate in all the parades.”
While parades are in motion, the dancers’ performance on Saturday was in front of the amphitheater in Faith American Legion Park.
“There is not a whole lot of difference in (a moving performance or a stationary one),” Rayfield said. “With the stationary events, you place them in certain formations and they stand within that amount of area. With moving events, we basically put them in lines. We teach them the routines first so they have the knowledge of the basic things happening and then we go outside and march around parking lots to teach them how to move with it.”
The dancers on Saturday ranged in age from six to 18 and they performed to a variety of songs across multiple genres.
“Our instructors sit down, play songs and say, ‘Ooo I like the beat of that one,’” Rayfield said. “A lot of it has to do with the rhythm.”
She added that her dancers are always excited to be a part of events like Frosty Fest.
“The kids will do this rain, shine, cold or hot,” she said. “They are the big troopers of the whole thing. Just to see the smiling faces that they have when we do these events is the best part for me. It’s not about perfection. It’s not about making sure you do everything right or correct. It’s more about just being together and having fellowship with them. That is one thing we really believe.”
Dimensions was not the only local organization out there. Members from the recently opened Faith-based Flip City Gymnastics were showcasing their skills.
“As soon as we opened, we heard about (Frosty Fest) and we have pretty much been preparing for it ever since we heard about it,” owner Jordyn Powell said. “These are our competition girls. They are in the gym six to nine hours a week. It’s a little hard to do it all out here without the equipment but we practiced and did our basics to show what we can do.”
According to Powell, being a part of the Frosty Fest is just an extension of what it means to be a part of Faith.
“We love being in Faith,” Powell said. “Everyone is so welcoming and very easy going. It’s pretty much like a family.”
