In Mattapoisett, it just doesn’t quite feel like Christmas until Salty gets his hat.
By mid-Wednesday morning, Mattapoisett’s beloved Salty the Seahorse will once again join in the celebration of Christmas when workers at Brownell Systems via crane will place the giant Santa hat upon his head.
By the end of the first week of December, many of us were wondering, when is Salty going to get his Santa hat for the holiday season? The receptionist at Brownell Systems on December 4 wondered the same thing, saying that usually someone from the Mattapoisett Land Trust would have contacted them by that time.
When Jenny Mello, former member of the Mattapoisett Land Trust and continued organizer of Salty’s Santa hat, was asked, her reply was an urgent, “Oh yeah, I completely forgot – it’s Christmas!”
Now, Salty will be all dressed for Christmas on Wednesday, December 9, reminding the passersby of his home at Dunseith Gardens that Christmas has officially come to Mattapoisett.
The tradition of Salty the Seahorse’s Santa hat goes back about seven years, said Mello. A colleague suggested to her that dressing up Salty for the holidays would be a great way to attract attention to the Dunseith Garden grounds, under the management of the MLT.
“We wanted to encourage people to get out there and use it,” said Mello. “To encourage them to get out there and enjoy that space in the middle of town.”
So the project started with the tedious measuring of Salty’s seahorse head. How big of a hat would be need?
Workers at Eastern Sails designed and created the hat for Salty using a red outdoor, heavy-duty material, like what they would use as boat seat covers and such, said Mello.
“Then they used a white float, like a buoy, as the pom-pom on the hat,” said Mello, “to stick with the nautical Mattapoisett theme.
The massive Mattapoisett icon is an essential part of a holiday tradition in town, watching the hustle and bustle of Christmas around him from his corner of North Street and Route 6, looking jolly, and welcoming all to stop and say hello and make a visit to Dunseith Gardens.
By Jean Perry
